THE LIFE OF 

JOHN KOLLAR 

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

ENGLISH VERSION BY JOHN KULAMER. 
SLOVAK VERSION BY PETER S. KOMPIS. 

PUBLISHED BY 
THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA 
PITTSBURGH PA. 



JAN KOLLAR 

£ivotopisn0 ndstin. 

SPRACOVALI: 

slovensky: PETER S. KOMPIS 

anglickp: JAN KULAMER. 

VYDALA : 

SLOVENSKA liga v amerike. 



COPYRIGHTED BY 

SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA 

FEBRUARY 3rd, 1917. 



THE LIFE OF 

JOHN KOLLAR 

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



ENGLISH VERSION BY JOHN KU LAMER. 
SLOVAK VERSION BY PETER S. KOMPIS. 



PUBLISHED BY 
THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA 
PITTSBURGH PA. 



& 



COPYRIGHTED BY 

SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA 

FEBRUARY 3rd, 1917. 



4» 




JOHN KOLLAR. 



/ 



©G1.A455443 






Introduction. 



>MONG the world problems of our age the 

Au\ Slavic Question is forging to the forefront. 
\\ Ninety years ago it was hardly more than 
academic, yet in the 1 9 th, and at the beginning 
of the present Century it grew into a political, social and 
economic idea. This question, in fact, is becoming inter- 
national. 

It arose naturally out of the awakening of national 
consciousness in the European races. The consciousness 
that the Russians, the Poles, the Bohemians, the Slovaks 
and the South Slavs, in times past, formed but one nation 
lived in the memory of the Slavs for hundreds of years 
prior to that period. In Russia the so called Annals of 
Nestor, originally written in the 1 1 th Century, speak of 
the common origin of the Slavic nations, who only after 
they split and migrated to the East, the South and the 
West assumed their distinctive names. Old historians 
Kosmas, the Bohemian, ( 1 1 25),Gallus, the Pole, (1 1 10,) 
Orbini, the South Slav, (1601) all agree in the view 
that the Slavs are a nation belonging to the same race 
and that they differ only in dialect and a few special 
words. Even in the royal documents i — the Danish, 
the Mecklenburgian, the German, the Pomeranian, etc. 
— they are referred to by a common name, "Slavi": 
"quod slavice dicitur", "duces, reges, Slavorum". 

Archaological relics prove that the Slavs lived in 
Lusatia, in Silesia, in Hungary (in the valley of the Ri- 
mava) even in the neolithic and the bronze ages. The 
non-Slavic, the Roman, the Greek, the Arab, historians, 
chroniclers and geographers, from the 1st to the 12th 



Centuries, (from Pliny the Second, to the Arabs, Al Bekri 
and Edrisi) mention the large area which the Slavs in- 
habited and their vast numbers. 

But under the pressure of barbaric tribes, the Ger- 
mans, Asdingians, Silingians ; Magyars, Huns, Tartars 
and Turks, which in the middle ages overran the Slavic 
countries and in many places separated the compact 
masses in which they had lived and thereby weakened 
them, the consciousness of their unity was nearly wiped 
out, and that also for the reason that the most progressive 
ones, the Obodriti, the Letti and the Serbi, residing bet- 
ween the Baltic sea and the present Saxony and from 
Dancig to the present Holstein, were, from the 8th to 
the 12 th Centuries, almost completely exterminated or 

Germanized. 

'- *• * * 
But an.idea founded in nature and history may be, 

for a time, stifled but never wiped out. 

Then came the 13th, 14th and 15 th Centuries and 
the Renaissance. Cruel wars were waged incessantly by 
the Germans and the Turks against the Slavs. But the 
reformations of Wycliffe, Huss, Luther and Calvin ad- 
vocated the use of the mother tongue by the church and 
the state. The Hussites, in particular, were ardent nation- 
alists. Luther himself acknowledged: "I, Zwingli, Me- 
lanchton, are all in fact Hussites.'* (See Ranke, History 
of the Reformation). Huss opposed with all the force 
of his character the Teutonic attempts to Germanize the 
University of Prague. His followers in arms, fighting 
for liberty of conscience and political independence, con- 
quered with their swords nearly all of Europe. At the 
same time the Russian empire began to grow in power. 
Poland, after the might of the Teutonic Order was broken 
and after it was formed into one political unit, began 
also to assume great importance among her neighbors. 



It seemed then that upon the northern and the western 
Slavs would dawn the conciousness of their common in- 
terests. After the 1 5 year Hussite wars, Bohemia grew 
considerably both politically and nationally. Impelled 
by the inborn Slavic passion for the equality of man, both 
the inhabitants of cities and the village communities 
wrested for themselves certain liberties. But this did 
not last long. At the instignation of the Teutonic rulers 
and the nobility, thirsting after glory, new religious 
and political wars broke out in the year 1485. At the 
Diet of Kuttenberg the cities were deprived of their re- 
presentation and the farming population, by new enact- 
ments, was shorn of its personal liberties and actually en- 
slaved. In the meanwhile the Turks had conquered the 
South Slavs, and, after the battle of Mohacs, nearly all 
of Hungary and a portion of Slovensko. The Teutonic 
Hapsburgs possessed themselves of the throne of 
Bohemia. This oppression, practiced by the nobility, 
lasted until the battle of White Mountain (1620) which 
sounded the death knell of independent Bohemia. In the 
30 year's war, out of three million people in Bohemia 
2,200,000 were either exterminated or banished. True, 
Germany also broke up into many small states, but these 
were partly kept together by the Imperial Diet and by 
the racial consciousness still persisting in the people. 
Among the Slavs, however, the national feeling slumb- 
ered. In the northwest they were gradually depleted by 
the Teutons, in the South by the Turks. It must be ad- 
mitted that the Turks injured greatly the Slavs in their 
existence, their language and their distinctiveness, but 
the Teutons injured them more. 

The Slavic idea languished but did not die out. 
Even during the centuries of political division and dom- 
estic strife, there arose mentors who earnestly preached 



to the Russians, the Poles, the Bohemians and the Ser- 
bians their common Slavic tongue. John Benedicti, the 
Bohemian (15 71) in his grammar enumerates the Bo- 
hemian, the Slovak, the Serbian as Slavic dialects, spoken 
from Hungary to Constantinople, and among these he 
also includes the Polish and the Russian. He, therefore, 
advocated Pan-Slavism. The Poles, Orzechowski (1564) 
and Gornicki (1566), in their books advised authors 
to colaborate and to exchange words and phrases from 
the various Slavic dialects. 

Even the illustrious descendant of the Polabian 
Slavs, the world famous genius, philosopher and histor- 
ian, Leibnitz in 1713 at Torgov thus spoke to Peter the 
Great, Czar of Russia: "Our origin is the same. Both 
of us are Slavs". And he advised the Czar to have a 
collection made of data necessary for the study of the 
Russian language, similar to the one that had been made 
at his suggestion of the antiquities of the Obodriti and 
the Drevani. 

The Serbian scholar, Abraham Brancell of Lusatia, 
in 1693, spoke of "the famous and powerful Slav nation, 
before whom the entire world would surely bow, if it had 
as much luck as it had virtue". He raised the hopes of 
the Serbs of Lusatia in a better future. (This little Slav 
island in the Teutonic ocean, Upper and Lower Lusatia, 
lies southwestwardly from Berlin and northeastwardly 
from Dresden). 

The South-Slavs of Dalmatia, Croatia, Carinthia and 
Bulgaria also claimed membership in the Slavic family. 
Faustin Vrancic, the Croatian, in the preface to his Croat- 
ian-Krainer dictionary (1605) writes: "So far as known, 
there is no more extensively spoken language than the 
Slavic, for it may be heard in large portions of Europe 
and Asia." Bohoric the Krainer (1584), indicated the 



close affiliation of the South-Slavic languages with the 
Russian, the Polish and the Bohemian. George Krzanic, 
a Bosnian Serb, who emigrated to Russia, undertook a 
still greater task; in 1665 he wrote an All-Slavic gram- 
mar. In Russia alone did Krzanic see the salvation of the 
scattered Slavic nations. 

Thus did the scholars, poets and preachers of all the 
branches of the Slavic family try to awaken the Slavic 
consciousness in the 1 6th, 1 7th and the 1 8th Centuries. 
But this represents the work of but few individuals who 
were unable to awaken the masses of the people. 

The entire Slavic race became alive to the full 
realization of its common interests only in the first half 
of the 1 9th Century, for which the greatest credit is due 
to two Slovaks, Paul Joseph Safarik and John Kollar. The 
former was a scholar, a historian of European fame and 
the latter a great poet. 

The Western nations, sad to say, know very little 
about the Slavs, about their history, culture or arts; even 
thorough and earnest students of human affairs concern 
themselves more with the African tribes than with their 
neighbors, the Slavs. And this notwithstandig the fact 
that the Slavic idea is influencing more than 250 million 
of people; some of these strive to realize it, others to 
annihilate it. It is highly important, therefore, to become 
acquainted, if only in a cursory way, with its foremost 
apostle, John Kollar. 

To give such information is the purpose of this 
pamphlet. 



Historical Data. 

John Kollar was born in the town of Mosovce, in 
the County of Turoc, northern Hungary, on the 29th of 
July, 1793. 

Slovensko, the Northern portion of Hungary, is rich 
in natural and man-made beauties, in material and spi- 
ritual treasures, although heretofore little appreciated ancf 
hardly even known. A French writer on political econ- 
omy, when traveling through this portion of Hungary 
said: "When I behold this harmonious blending of mount- 
ains, valleys and plains, these crystall-clear but mighty 
rivers and cataracts, these luxuriant forests, extensive rich 
deposits of minerals and the picturesque type of men, 
their well developed artistic ornamentation in inexhaust- 
ible motiffs, applied to the clothing of their men, women 
and children, to their cottages, houses and furniture and 
when I behold all these undeveloped slumbering natural 
resources, all this water power, it seems to me that in this 
country the myths concerning magic castles and golden 
palaces should be materialized". Even the native Slovaks 
acknowledge that the County of Turoc is the most beau- 
tiful portion of Slovensko. Amid these beautiful sur- 
roundings, John Kollar spent his tender years. 

His father, Mathew, was quite an important citizen 
of his town; he had been a justice of the peace, and a 
notary public. His principal occupation was tilling the 
soil, but he also engaged in the butcher business. His-, 
family was of moderate circumstances. His father was 
strict, economical and as dilligent at his work as at his 
prayers. He was rather irritable, rash and very obdurate. 
He was fairly well educated, considering the standing of 
his family and his calling. Besides finishing the elemen- 
tary schools at home he attended the three lower grades 
at the Gymnasium of Asod, where he learned a little 
Latin. His mother, {Catherine Drozd, came from a good 
family of trade people. Both were of the Protestant- 
Lutheran religion. 

His parents raised their boy, John, in a very strict 
religious atmosphere. He attended the elementary schools 



of his town. When he was 1 years old, at the request 
of his girl friends, he wrote four verses for the reception 
of the Bishop. At the common scools of Mosovce, as 
it was in all the schools of his day, the Latin language was 
considered the foundation of education and, consequent- 
ly, a good deal of time and attention were spent on it. 
In Northern Hungary the Latin language maintained its 
supremacy longer than in any other country. This in 
spite of the fact that the Slovaks had a translation of the 
Bible since the times of Cyrill and Methodius (885). 
Since 1564 — 1588, the Slovaks together with the Bo- 
hemians had their classic Bohemian-Slovak "Kralitzer" 
Bible. Under the fostering care of the Veleslavins ( 1 560 
— 1600), publishers, Bohemian literature flourished 
and its works were known by the Slovaks. In 1631 the 
great works of John Amos Comenius had a wide circul- 
ation. Yet, notwithstanding this, as if under some curse, 
in the 1 7th, 1 8th and at the beginning of the 1 9th Cen- 
turies, Latin was taught and spoken not only by the 
nobility and the burgoise of the cities but even by the 
cooks, chambermaids and hostlers. Cabbages and pigs 
were sold in Latin in the market places. 

Kollar, an unusually gifted and dilligent scholar, 
enthusiastically studied this dead language. He acknow- 
ledged himself that in his boyhood days he wished that 
all the other languages perished and that all the people 
should speak Latin. His farsighted teacher, Sulek, in- 
stilled into the hearts of his pupils the love of their mother 
tongue. Bur j an, his second master, exerted the same in- 
fluence on Kollar. The boy, in the meantime, drank in 
with avidity the beauties of his picturesque hillsides and 
forests in which he loved to roam ; he listened to the tune- 
ful songs of the the harvesters in the fields and the mea- 
dows. These are replete both with gayety and melan- 
choly and posses true poetic beauty. 

After he finished his common schools, at the age 
of 1 3, his father sent him to the gymnasiums at nearby 
Kremnitz. Here he devoted himself to deeper studies 
of Latin and its classics. He acquired such through know- 
ledge of it that he could compose Latin speeches and 
chronograms. At Kremnitz he passionately applied him- 



10 

self to drawing and painting. In his days these arts were 
specially cultivated in that town. He also learned 
German. 

After two years he came home with an excellent 
school record. He came home with the idea of returning 
to his studies the next Fall. But his hopes were shattered 
by his exceedingly "practical" father who wanted him 
to help on the farm and in business, and had him apprent- 
iced to a butcher. But this occupation went against his 
grain, and he left his master. His enraged father drove 
away his 1 6 year son, who, urged by his desire for higher 
education left his home with a sad heart and sought re- 
fuge with his cousin, also John Kollar, who was a school 
teacher in the nearby town of Slovenske Pravno. He 
sympathized with his relative and encouraged him to per- 
severe in his purpose. He argued to him that they would 
find some way for him to attend school. Shortly after- 
wards Adam Burjan, Kollar' s teacher at Mosovce, came 
to visit them and took Kollar with him back home as 
an assistent teacher for one year. His father would have 
nothing to do with him even then and would not spend 
anything on his education. His retiring and affectionate 
mother could offer but little help. But Burjan procured 
for Kollar help from the gymnasium at Banska Bystrica. 
Here he made his living by private tutoring and also from 
his drawings and paintings, while attending his classes 
regularly. His great intellectual gifts were soon recog- 
nized and appreciated by professor Magda, who under- 
took to look after his material and spiritual wants. At 
Banska Bystrica Kollar devoted himself particularly to 
the study of the Latin classic authors: Virgil, Horace, 
Ovid and the philosopher Boothius. 

In two years he completed his gymnasium course. 
That was in 1812. He departed with the highest honors. 
The following Fall he made up his mind to go to Press- 
burgh, to study for the ministry. But he did not go home 
to his father for his vacation. Money he had none. At 
the advice of the authorities at Banska Bystrica he be- 
came a supplicant. Supplicants were poor students, who 
traveled thoroughout the country collecting gifts, partly 
for the support of some school, which during the scholas- 



li 

tic year furnished common meals to its students either 
free of charge or for a nominal price, and partly for them- 
selves. Every supplicant received a collection book and 
was assigned to a certain district where he could make 
his rounds. Ordinarily, these supplicants traveled on 
foot from village to village, from city to city, from school 
to school. 

Kollar at first covered the northernmost part of his 
native country.the Counties of Liptov and Orava and then 
struck out for the Plains, Southern Hungary. On his 
travels in the south, he was here and there asked by the 
ministers, overwhelmed with work, to preach on Sun- 
days, for which he usually received small compensation. 
The small commission he received from his collections 
and the help he obtained from his relatives enabled him, 
in the Fall of 1812 to enter the Academy at Pressburgh 
to study philosophy and theology. Here he again acted 
as private tutor to help him out in paying for his tuition 
and his board. The second year, having proved him- 
self an excellent scholar, he was given a temporary po- 
sition as instructor and manager of the Orphan Asylum 
of the city of Pressburgh. Till then this institution had 
been neglected, but Kollar introduced the system of Salz- 
man and Basedowski and raised its standard so high that 
even the citizens and the nobility sent their children 
there. 

He did not, in spite of his activities, neglect his own 
education. He applied himself privately to everything 
which the poor facilities of the Academy could not supply 
him. He learned Greek, French, Italian and English; 
he became proficient in the Old Slavic language. He 
studied botany, mathematics and astronomy and took 
exercises in singing, music and even dancing. In a word, 
he wanted to perfect himself in everything that he thought 
would be useful to him in his career. He read Iffland, 
Wieland, Klopstock, the German poets and Cervante's 
Don Quixote in German translation. These works, how- 
ever, made little impression on him. 

The City of Pressburg was in those days rather in- 
teresting. It lies on the Danube not far from Vienna, 
on the main road to Budapest. Important personages, 



12 

artists, scientists, were wont to stop at Pressburg. Here 
Kollar saw the conquerors of Napoleon at the battle of 
Leipzig, when they came there on excursions from the 
Congress of Vienne. Here he saw how brutally the Aus- 
trians treated their French captives, etc. Here he became 
acquainted with Francis Palacky, who was his fellow- 
student, and who later became a famous Bohemian histo- 
rian. At that time there were also several South Slav 
students attending the Academy, with whom he struck 
up an acquintance. 

After three year's attendance at the Academy he 
passed the required examinations in theology and began 
thinking of going to some German university to complete 
his education. To provide himself with the necessary 
funds he accepted the position of private tutor with a weal- 
thy family of Banska Bystrica for a year and a half. Here 
he became acquainted with Rev. Samuel Roznay, the 
incumbent of the Lutheran parish, who was only 6 years 
older than himself. Roznay was very highly educated, 
a man of deep sympathies and of a pleasing personality. 
He was an enthusiastic Slovak and Slavonian. He exert- 
ed a great influence on Kollar. In a great measure we 
can thank Roznay for making John Kollar a prophet of 
Panslayism. But Roznay died in a few months after 
he became a friend of Kollar. 

In the Fall of 1817 Kollar started on his journey to 
Jena. At Buda (then not yet joined to Pesth, although 
a seat of several government offices) he procured his 
passport and then went through Pressburgh, Vienna to 
Prague. Here he became acquainted with seme of the 
best known Bohemian scholars, authors, and particular- 
ly with Joseph Jungman, and the philologist, Joseph Do- 
brovsky. Prague at that time, although inhabited mostly 
by Bohemians, was almost completely Germanized. It 
made a sad impression on Kollar. He said about Prague 
that it looked to him like the petrified history of the Bo- 
hemian nation. At that time he did not even dream that 
within few years it would become a powerful center of 
the scientific and industrial activities of Bohemia. 

Leaving Prague he stopped for a few days at Dres- 
den and there visited the world famous picture galleries. 



13 

From there he went by Leipzig to Jena. He was then 
24 years old. 

Jena, a city in the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar, is even 
to-day unimportant from the industrial standpoint. At 
the beginning of the 19th Century it had hardly 10,000 
inhabitants and 2,000 to 3,000 of these were university 
students. But in a spiritual sense, it was, together with 
the neighboring city of Weimar, about 1 2 miles ( 1 9 kilo- 
meters) from Jena, one of the greatest seats of learning 
and enlightment, the home of geniuses. Before Kollar's 
advent the great philosophers Fichte, Schelling, Hegel 
and the poet Schiller were giving lectures at this Uni- 
versity. In Kollar's time their scholars, Fries and Ok en 
were teaching there. The entire University, professors and 
students were liberal; everybody was impregnated with 
the spirit of truth and liberty. At Weimar Herder, Wie- 
land, Schiller, Goethe, Arndt and others made their 
homes. Kollar knew the great Goethe personally. He 
made several translation of Slovak songs into the German 
language for him. Goethe called [Collar's attention to 
the great poetical beauty of folksongs, and, because the 
renowned Herder had already in 1 778 published his 
famous collection of the "Folksongs" which contained 
a good many Slavic songs, principally Serbian, Kollar 
resolved to make a complete collection of Slovak folk- 
songs. 

A new world revealed itself to the vision of Kollar 
at Jena. The professors at the University occupied the 
front ranks among world renowned scholars; the Univer- 
sity Library was one of the best for those days. In the 
nearby city of Leipzig there was another famous Univer- 
sity, which two years prior to Kollar's advent to Jena, in 
1816, was consolidated with the universities of Halle and 
Erfurt. All this spiritual wealth and the beauties of the 
valley of the river Saale deeply affected the sensitive soul 
of Kollar. He thus describes his feelings in his "Me- 
moirs": "Jena and its vicinity, nay my entire journey 
through Saxony, aroused new and hertofore unknown 
emotions in my soul. Everywhere Slavic names and non- 
Slavic inhabitants!" 

Here he studied theology, philosophy, the natural 



14 

sciences and universal history. He wanted to acquire all 
knowledge, all the sciences, but he saw that it was im- 
possible; so, in order not to dissipate his mental energies, 
he mapped out for himself a definite course of studies. 
Besides the above subjects, he took a course in philology 
and privately devoted himself to reading the works of 
Goethe, Rousseau, Chateaubriand, Ossian, Petrarca and 
others. He also studied poetics and acquired a work- 
ing knowledge of the technique of poetry. The works 
of Herder profoundly affected the views of Kollar. Her- 
der, as early as 1 787 in his work, "Ideen zur Geschichte 
der Menschcheit" (Ideas to the History of Humanity) 
speaking of the unhappy history of the Slavs, said: "The 
wheel of changing time is forever turning, because these 
nations (the Slavic) for the most part inhabit the most 
fertile poritons of Europe and because they are rather 
uncivilized and their commerce is little developed. Since 
it is obvious that in Europe laws and politics will encou- 
rage civil and mutual cooperation rather than miliatrism, 
therefore, you too, Slavic races, now at such a low ebb 
of development, will at some future time be prosperous 
and happy; you will awaken from your long, deep slum- 
bers and will be freed from your chains; you will enjoy 
your beautiful countries, from the Adriatic to the Tatra 
and from the Don to the Mulda and will celebrate your 
ancient festivals of peaceful labor and commerce*'. 

The works of Herder have not been fully appreciat- 
ed by his own people, the Germans, to this day; but 
Kollar understood fully Herder's lofty spirit. 

John Benedicti, another Slovak youth of high ideals 
and noble purposes was Kollar's fellow student at Jena, 
ihe two countrymen soon became fast friends. On Sun- 
days and holidays they would ramble in the flowery 
meadows and hillsides and made short excursions to the 
neighboring villages and towns. They found out that all 
around them the names of the communities, mountains, 
streams and of the families were Slavic. They found 
further that the inhabitants still remembered that Slavic 
blood coursed in their veins and that they were German- 
ized by force. Both the comrades applied themselves to 
learning the old Slavic chronicles from which fragmentary 



15 

collection they gradually reconstructed the glorious hi- 
story of their Slavic brethren: they sorrowed over the fate 
of so many Slavic families, mercilessly exterminated and 
estranged. The result of these discoveries was that 
Kollar applied himself with zeal to the study of Slavic 
history and antiquities. 

His surcharged soul sought expression in poetry. 
His determination to write poetry was stimulated by an 
unusual experience. Even among the professors of the 
University he was known as an eloquent speaker. In the 
nearby community of Lobeda, the minister, Schmidt by 
name, was taken seriously ill. His wife went to Jena to 
ask the Bishop and the professor J. G. Marezoll, to send 
somebody to take his place at the services in the church 
the following Sunday At the recommendation of Ma- 
rezoll, she asked Kollar. Accompanied by his friend Be- 
nedicti, Kollar went to Lobeda a day ahead, in order 
to acquaint himself with the preacher; he also met his 
beautiful daughter, Wilhelmina, who was then 22 years 
old. He had seen her at a previous entertainment, but 
now he met her at home and fell in love with her on the 
spot. Her father, Schmidt, told Kollar that he, too, was 
of Slavic descent. 

From that day Kollar was a frequent visitor at the 
home of Schmidt; he also began to write poetry, sonnets, 
idelaizing the young woman. To him she played the 
role of Laura to Petrarca and Beatrice, to Dante. He 
called her Mina, and she finally became the "Daughter 
of Slavia", the incarnation of all the fires that consumed 
his ardent soul. 

Pastor Schmidt of Lobeda died soon after that. The 
members of his congregation had become so fascinated 
with Kollar that they called him to their parish. Had 
he accepted this call he would have accomplished two 
things; he could have married his beloved and would 
have assured a comfortable living for himself. Mrs. 
Schmidt heartily approved this plan. She informed her 
daughter's suitor that she would consent to the union but 
only on condition that they would iemain in Germany. 
She did not want even to listen to the suggestion that her 
daughter go to Hungary with her prospective husband. 



16 

She looked upon Hungary as a barbarous country; Hun- 
gary and Siberia meant the same thing to her. [Collar 
was face to face with a struggle between love and duty. 
Love for his people came out victor over his love for 
his sweetheart. He answered the parishioners of Lobeda 
that he was a Slovak and not a German and that, since 
the Germans had an abundance of excellent preachers and 
the Slovaks had hardly any, he considered it his duty 
and his vocation to labor for the uplift of his own people. 
In the year 1869, after a sojourn of a year and a half, he 
left Jena with a heavy heart. Before returning to his 
native land, however, he planned to make a trip through 
Poland and Russia with three of his Russian fellow-stud- 
ents. But one of these fell in a student's duel and the 
others then hastened home. Kollar and another friend 
visited Saxony, Brandenburg and Pomerania as far as 
the Baltic sea; all these are Germanized Slavic countries. 
"It seemed to him as if he were threading on the graves 
of his dear departed. He went as far as Holland to the 
grave of the famous pedagogue, John Amos Comenius, at 
Narden, near Amsterdam. From there he journeyed by 
water up the river Rhine and a short piece up the river 
Danube and, after several weeks he reached Prague. 
Here his spirit gained new vigor from the sympathic 
friendship of renowned Bohemian patriots. Finally he 
returned, by way of Pressburgh, to his beloved Turoc. 
But even then he did not enter his father's house, but 
went to the home of his cousin, John Kollar, at Slovenske 
Pravno. He spent the summer in writing poetry and 
just drinking in the beauties of nature. 

In the Fall of 1819, the German-Slovak evangelical 
church of Pesth needed a curate who knew both German 
and Slovak. Bishop Lovich knew Kollar* s special quali- 
fications for the position and recommended him to the 
church autorities. Thus he came to settle at Pesth. But 
here he got between two, or rather three fires. The 
Slovaks of Pesth demanded as their natural right and as 
being in consonance with the principles of protestantism, 
that the common administration allow the church services 
to be held in their mother tongue also, the same as they 
had been prior to that held both in the German and 



17 

Magyar languages. The Germans and the Magyars were 
opposed this. Soon afterwards their common preacher, 
Molnar, died ; the Slovaks elected Kollar and the Germans 
Kalchbrenner, as his successor. The Slovaks demanded 
that certain hours be set apart for them to conduct their 
services in the common church. The Germans did all 
they could to prevent this. They locked the church and 
the parish house in the face of the Slovaks. Nay, one 
Sunday they even brought the county officials, accom- 
panied with an armed posse, to keep Kollar and his fol- 
lowers out of the church. On this occasion he succeeded 
in convincing the autorities of his right to conduct the 
services in that church. The separation of the two factions 
of the congregation followed, but the Slovaks got the 
short end in the partition of the property. From new 
donations they founded, in connection with their church, 
a school also. Kollar soon found out that to educate his 
neglected Slovaks, who for hundreds of years suffered 
untold persecutions at the hands of the Germans and the 
Magyars, just because they wanted to cultivate their 
mother tongue — the tradesmen and artisans were driven 
out of their business establishments and workshops and 
the farmers were subjected to daily lashings by their su- 
periors — it was necessary to begin with composing spel- 
lers and primers, and so in 1825 and 1826 he wrote and 
published such books for the children. In 1821, under 
the title "Poems", he published a portion of his sonnets 
and in 1824 his "Daughter of Slavia" an amplified col- 
lection of the same, was given to the Slovak world. After 
every publication of the works Kollar, the German "pro- 
pagators of culture" (Kulturtrager) called together meet- 
ings at which resolutions, addressed to the church and 
state authorities, were passed protesting against his act- 
ivities; insulting, anonymous letters poured in on him; his 
windows were broken and he was nightly treated to cater- 
wauling concerts. 

But his longsuffering and conciliatory spirit soon 
made for him both humble sympathizers and powerful 
friends even in the camp of his enemies, to which alone 
he could attribute the fact that he was able to maintain 
himself in Pesth at all. Of course, his rabid enemies did 



18 

not cease persecuting him even after that, but less fierce- 
ly. Due to this continuous strain and to his arduous 
labors he twice took seriously ill, from hemorrhages. His 
friends on both occasions sent him to one of those famous 
watering places with which Slovensko, above all other 
countries, abounds. He thus regained his health in the 
neighborhood of his birthplace, at Stubna. 

But his ill health did not prevent him from doing 
his work both in the church and the school, and he con- 
tinued writing also. He made an ample collection and 
contribution to Jungmann's epochal "Bohemian-German 
Dictionary' *, on which Jungmann and his assistants 
worked for over thirty years. 

Ever since his younger days, Kollar was making a 
collection of Slovak popular songs. He published a port- 
ion of it, under the title "Songs of the Slovak People of 
Hungary," at Pesth in 1823. This book, however, he 
published in the names of his friends, Safarik the historian 
and Bendicti. His name was left out, although the prin- 
cipal collector, with the consent of his friends, for fear 
that his fellow preachers would enter protests against him 
for engaging in popular wordly poetry. During the fol- 
lowing eleven years, he considerably enlarged and per- 
fected this collection and in 1834 — 35 he published it 
in two volumns called: "National Songs, or the Wordly 
Songs of the People of Hungary, Sung both by the Com- 
monalty and the Educated Classes; collected from all 
sources, arranged and supplied with explanations, and 
published at Buda, 1834 — 35." This is a magnificient 
work, with which there was nothing to compare until 
some 40 — 60 years later when similar works of Russian, 
Polish, French and English folklorists appeared. 

In 1834 a great change occured in the life of Kollar, 
which finally healed up at least one wound inflicted on 
his tender heart. He was informed by one of his student 
friends at Jena, a certain Blazy, that Mina Schmidt, his 
deified "Daughter of Slavia", still lived at Jena and was 
unmarried. 

After Kollar' s departure from Jena, the mother of 
Mina succeeded in stopping the correspondence between 
her daughter and Kollar. It would seem that she even 



19 

assisted in spreading a rumor, which reached Kollar after 
his arrival at home, that Mina had died. At any rate he 
considered her as dead. But now Blazy informed him 
that her mother had died. After waiting 1 6 years, he re- 
newed his suit for the hand of Mina. He received a 
favorable reply; so he went, in 1835 to Germany and re- 
turned home with his 40 year old bride. Their union 
was a happy one. One girl, Ludmila, was born to them. 
The wife and the daughter survived their husband and 
father. 

Kollar spent his following years in editing his "Ser- 
mons for Sundays, Holy days and Other Occasions", some 
of which, according to the custom of Slovak preachers 
of his days, he had published in separate tracts. A col- 
lection of his sermons appeared finally; the first volumn 
in 1831 and the second in 1844. These two volumns 
contained about 1500 pages. The second volumn, in 
particular, contains sermons directed at developing in 
man the heigher religious and moral sense rather than 
homilies on current theological questions. Their main 
theme is that religion and nationalism are kindred ideas, 
which he called "sisters''. He appreciated well the fact 
that all the great reformers maintained their influence 
over the masses by proclaiming their ideas in plain, every 
day language. He approved of protestantism mainly be- 
cause it insisted on the use of the mother tongue at the 
church services. He well understood the interdependence 
between the sentiments of filial affection, brotherly love, 
nationalism and the love of God, and he preached that 
he who estranges himself from his people can neither 
serve God, nor love his parents nor be a good patriot 
nor be capable of true reverence for his ancestors. In 
his religious teachings he laid great stress on moral per- 
fection and the development of good character. He was 
particular in impressing upon his congregation the im- 
portance of the community of Slavic interests. 

At this time he confined his researches to history, 
archaeology, mythology and philology. 

He contributed articles to the Bohemian-Slovak 
magazines, dealing with the history of civilization, folk- 
lore, songs, traditions, customs and Slavic festivals. He 



20 

published his "Literaty Connection between the Various 
Slavic Branches and Dialects." This book appeared in 
German under the title, "Ueber die literarische Wechsel- 
aeitikzeit zwischen den verschiedenen Stammen und Mun- 
darten der Slavischen Nation" (Pesth 1837 — 38, Second 
Edition 1844.) He also published the historical and my- 
thological work, "The Goddess Slava and the Origin of 
the Name Slav or Slavonian." (1839). This book is a 
rich collection of quotations and data from the then 
extant literature. 

In 1841 he made his first journey through Styria and 
Italy, partly for pleasure and partly to gather further in- 
formation. He described his experiences, impressions, 
thoughts and feelings of this journey in his first "Trav- 
els through Upper Italy". This work appeared in 1843. 
He took his second trip to Italy, through Switzerland, in 
1844. His book describing this trip was not published 
until after his death, in 1853. Besides this he collected 
material for his "Slavic Ancient Italia" which was pub- 
lished posthumously in 1853. Then followed the stormy 
days of the Hungarian revolution, 1 848 — 49, in which 
the Magyar leaders paraded before the world as the 
champions of the liberty, fraternity and equality of the 
Hungarian nationalities, whereas in fact it was a struggle 
to reestablish the power of the feudal nobility over the 
nations of that country. It is worthy of notice that from 
1830 to 1848 two thirds of the inhabitants of Hungary 
were Non-Magyar and that even to-day, in spite of the 
padding of the census statistics by the officials, the Ma- 
gyars are in the minority. It must not be forgotten either 
that at the Diet of Pressburgh, in 1847, the originator 
of this revolution, the notorious Louis Kossuth, a renegade 
Slovak, expressed his views on the rights of oppressed 
people in these sophisticated words: "It is the course and 
order of the world that he who is low in the social scale is 
oppressed and enslaved and he who exalts himself is 
well cared for and showered with priviledges". Within 
three months after that, Kossuth, carried away by the 
strong current that set in, was forced, although only ex- 
ternally, to advocate the liberation of the serfs, while at 
the same time he ordered the incarceration and execution 



21 

of innocent Serbs, Slovaks and Rumanians whose only 
crime was that they refused, under the duress of Kos- 
suth's terrorism, to denounce their own people. (The 
number of Serbian, Slovak and Rumanian men, women 
and children condemned to death without trial by the 
Kossuth regime exceeded 5 1 00. Great many of these 
were liberated from their dungeons by the Austrian and 
Russian armies, but quite a number were executed). 
Kollar was arrested at his parish house by the "honvids" 
(protectors of the realm) but was soon freed from prison 
by the Imperial army. In 1 849 the Vienna government 
invited him to become a counsellor on Slavic matters, 
but within a month he was appointed professor extra- 
ordinary of Slavic archaeology by the University of Vien- 
na. At this time he wrote his "Memoirs" which included 
his earliest experiences. His eyes became so weakened 
that he could only dictate his work. He died after a 
short illness in 1853, at the age of 59 years and 6 months. 
He was buried in St. Marx Cemetary at Vienna and his 
wife erected a modest tombstone over his grave. In 
1893 his mortal remains were transferred with great 
pomp to Prague and interned in "Na Olsanoch" Ce- 
metary. 

THE CHARACTER AND LIFE-WORK OF KOLLAR. 

Kollar's life-work was epochal, his character lofty 
and his personality engaging. He exerted a powerful 
influence not only upon his immediate kindred national- 
ities, but upon all the Slavs; the South Slavs, Croatians, 
Serbs ,Krainers, Poles, Russians and Lusatian Serbs liv- 
ing in Germany; nay to acertain degree even the Germans 
and the other neighboring nations felt his influence. 

While Kollar was principally a poet, he was more; 
he was not only a poet in the scholastic sense, but also, ac- 
cording to Emerson's definition, a thinker, prophet and 
a creator of a new era. 

Unquestionably his most important work is his col- 
lection of poems, the "Daughter of Slavia." 

Joseph Perwolf, the slavist, philosopher, historian 
and archaeologist, professor at the University of Warsaw, 



M 

said:"The "Daughter of Slavia" created a great sensation. 
In it Slavism for the first time appeared as a finished 
picture, painted in ideal colors, warmed with inspired 
love; in it, thoughts about Slavism were expressed clear- 
ly and boldly, and the collection of historical material, 
unusually rich for those days, concerning all-Slavism, to 
which the poet later added hiis copious commentaries, 
spread the knowledge of Slavic history and conditions 
in ever widening circles". 

Kollar came in the fullnes of time. Just as under 
the quickening touch of the warm breath of Spring, 
spreading over the wide fields, meadows and dells, the 
swelling buds burst forth, so, from time to time, there rise 
intellectual and spiritual currents, bringing with them 
their prophets, heralds and champions, under whose in- 
fluence men's souls open up to new visions. Every op- 
position and every impediment to such currents serves 
but as a new impulse to produce quicker and mightier 
growth, just as the feathery snow, falling on the bursting, 
tender sprouts and blossoms of the trees, the shrubs 
and plants retards them, so that they do not open too 
early and become but stunted shoots, and gives them op- 
portunity to assimilate properly the nourishment already 
absorbed by their cells and to build up the tissues and 
membranes into strong and efficient organs. 

Such an intellectual current spread all over Europe 
at the end of the 1 8th and the beginning of the 1 9th 
Centuries. The great Fichte preached the philosophy of 
the free ego — "das freie Ich" — and was followed 
by Schelling, proclaiming the identity of the ideal with 
the real and the right to existance only of such states as 
could harmonize the positive liberty of man with the com- 
mon interests. Hegel, with his teachings about subject- 
ive, objective and absolute spirit, inspired the Germans 
with national consciousness and ambition, but founded 
on state unity. But the young Slovaks, absorbing all this 
abstarct theorizing, reflected practically, somewhat in this 
fashion; "If the Teutonic subject can and ought to dev- 
elope, the Slavic individual has the same right; we are, 
as a people, just as worthy as the Germans". It is true 
that Hegel in his "Philosophy of History" held that nature 



23 

had it so ordered that in all ages there were nations 
chosen as standard bearers of enlightment ( "Weltgeist" ) 
before whom all other nations were without any rights, 
until they themselves disintegrated and perished, the 
Slovaks did not agree with him. "According to this, 
justly remarked Dr. Albert Stockel, history is but a 
calvary of objective spirits". The Slavs energetically 
dissented from these views of Hegel; they proclaimed 
the equal worth of nations, the right and the duty of 
every organism to develope freely, but only so as not 
to interfere with a similar right to free development of 
other organism, or nations. In this they were supported 
by Herder, whose philosophy was more cosmopolitan. 
National consciousness was beginning to spread very 
rapidly among all the Slavic branches. 

In Bohemia, Dobrovsky (1 755 — 1829), a profound 
scholar, the founder of Slavism (the study of Slavic 
languages, anthropology, archaeology, ethnology, history, 
literature, folklore etc.) inspired the Bohemian patriots 
to renewed efforts in the days of their nation's deepest 
humiliation and utter hopelessness. Besides others, he 
found a tireless co-worker in Joseph Jungmann (1 773 — 
1847.) 

Vuk Karadzic (1787 — 1864) was /arousing Ithe 
Croatians by founding, about the year 1814, a new pop- 
ular literature. 

The renowned philologist, Bartholomew Kopitar 
(1780 — 1844) distinguished himself as a scientist and 
Slavic patriot. 

In Russia Michael Petrovic Pogodin (1800 — 1875) 
actively labored to spread the Slavic idea. 

Among the Poles, among others, Vaclav Maciejow- 
ski (1793—1883), Andrew Kucharski, (1795—1862) 
as scholars and the poet Adam Mickiewicz ( 1 798 — 
1855) made quite a progress in the study of the Slavic 
question. 

Besides these there were other enthusiastic workers, 
all of whom, however, cannot be mentioned in a small 
work as this is. 

As it will appear from comparing these dates, all 
these were contemporaries of John Kollar and his ren- 



24 

owned fellow-countryman, Paul Joseph Safarik. (1795 
— 1863.) 

All of them recognized each other as fellow-workers 
in the neglected vineyards of their respective nations. 
They read each other's owrks and nearly all of them came 
into contact with each other either personally or through 
correspondence. They aided each other in their work 
both spiritually and materially. But only two, Kollar 
and Safarik, were equal to the occasion of arousing all 
the Slavs. It is true, as has already been stated, they 
found the soil fairly well prepared. 

But why is it, one may ask, that it was just these two 
Slovaks who became the apostles of the Slavic idea> 
The nation out of which they arose is almost the smallest 
of the Slavic branches. And besides, if not absolutely 
prevented, nearly insurmountable obstacles lay in the 
way of all Slovaks trying to reach the fountains of higher 
knowledge in a natural way, that is, through their mother 
tongue. 

This little nation has its peculiar genius. After re- 
viewing all the different opinions, data and researches 
regarding the original home of the Slavs, beginning with 
Herodotus, Strabo, Ptolomi, Plini, through the chronic- 
lers of the middle ages, down to the modern and most 
recent scholars, the conclusion is unavoidable that the 
cradle of the Slavs is the region lying about the Carpa- 
thian, the Tatra, mountains. While it is true that some 
modern historians — particularly Professor J. L. Pic — 
assert that the Slavs first inhabited the country of the 
lower Danube, Pannonia, there are others, and these are 
in the majority, who locate the cradle of the Slavs to the 
North and not to the South of the Carpathians. Quite 
convincing proofs, such as archaeological discoveries, 
indicate that Moravia and Selesia were the ancient domi- 
cile of the Slavs. All of which shows that Slovensko, and 
the countries abutting upon it, is the birth place of the 
Slavs as a typically distinct and by its language different- 
iated nation, a branch of the Indo-European race. Quite 
a number of relics were found from the neolithic and the 
first metal ages in these countries. There is an uninter- 
rupted succession of monuments to the prehistoric civili- 



25 

zation of these ancient Slavs; lake dwellings, wooden 
stockades, later stone fortifications, the oldest most 
simple and the more recent quite pretentious. 

Slovensko is truly the center of Slavism. It is worthy 
of notice that when scholars of the Old Slavic Church 
language become acquainted with the Slovak language as 
it is spoken by the common people of Slovensko, they 
are astonished at its close similarity to the ancient church 
language. Vladimir Ivanovifi Lamanskij, professor at 
the University of Petrograd, when he first visited Sloven- 
sko, said, "The Slovak language is the 'Old Slavic lan- 
guage". Of course, the very close relationship between 
the Slovak literary language and the Bohemian language 
cannot be denied. John Huss, the reformer, really wrote 
in Slovak; both the Bohemian and the Slovak common 
man can read without a dictionary, and understand, the 
writings of the Moravian Slovak Komensky and of the 
Hungarian Slovaks, Safarik and Kollar. 

Slovaks, whether illiterate or educated, learn the 
other Slavic dialects with remarkable ease, quicker and 
more perfectly than men belonging to other nations, more 
closely related to each other. A Slovak merchant visiting 
Russia can within a fortnight converse with a Russian 
peasant; a Slovak student attending a Serbo-Croatian 
college can, without especially studying this language, 
make equal progress with his Serbo-Croatian fellow- 
students. Slovak teachers, preachers, professors, doctors 
etc., being unable to secure positions at home, because 
of their persecution by the state officials, have for many 
decades been emmigrating to Russia, Poland, Bohemia, 
Serbia and Croatia, where they have practised their 
professions withouth difficulty and with marked success. 

The Italian anthropologist and psychiatrist, Cesare 
Lombroso, in his book "Genio e follia" demonstrates 
that nations consisting of mountaineers contributed the 
greatest number of remarkable men to humanity. The va- 
riety of natural phenomena, the richness of impressions 
and incentives, the possibility of making a living only by 
hard and sustained labor, all tend to the development of 
mentally and physically vigorous race. Well, the Slovaks 
are a nation of mountaineers. And because they inhabited 



26 

the same country for hundreds of years, they developed 
into a nation of rare possibilities, thirsting after enlight- 
ment and liberty, and in all their tastes they are so artistic 
that the English writer, Scotus Viator (R. W. Seaton- 
Watson) on his second visit to Slovensko in 1910, felt 
justified in saying: "Our Ruskin was looking all his life 
for a model nation, i. e. for one which is harmonious and 
artistic in all the expressions of its being. Ruskin looked 
in vain and died without the satisfaction of havng found 
one. It is a pity! If Ruskin were living to-day, I would 
have brought him here and would shown him the Slovak 
nation." 

In spite of all the oppression to which they had 
been subjected the Slovaks distinguished themselves in 
the fields of science also. 

Taking, then, all this into consideration, it is no 
wonder that the Slovak nation produced the greatest 
champion of the Slavic idea, John Kollar. It would seem 
at if the thought of the racial unity of all Slavs were 
inborn even in the common people of Slovensko. 

After all, Kollar was but the product of his environ- 
ment in accordance to the law of evolution. Suffering 
humanity evolved the greatest men. To understand the 
aspirations and the needs of the downtrodden masses' 
even a genius must go down to them and be able to think 
and feel with them. Power and wealth are obstacles 
which even a genius cannot overcome, because they breed 
pride and contempt for the weak on whom they feed and 
without whom they cannot subsist. Such men as Kollar 
are the concrete expression of the feelings and the needs 
of oppressed peoples. So that it is no wonder that the 
Slovaks, who for a thousand years have uninterruptedly 
felt the iron heel of tyranny crushing them, finally gave 
vent to their pent up feelings through Kollar. For hun- 
dreds of years they waited for their Messiah and when 
he appeared they knew and followed him. In his words 
they saw the yearnings of their innermost souls revealed; 
they accepted him for their spokesman. John Kollar 
was not only an individual but also the incarnation of the 
soul of the Slovak nation. 



27 

In his "Daughter of Slavia" Kollar gave this thought 
a fitting expression. 

The "Daughter of Slavia" first appeared, under this 
name, in 1824 at Pesth. (Among the older editions there 
were those of 1832 and 1845; recently there were many 
published.) Portions of this work were published at 
Prague as early as 1821, and some of its best parts circu- 
lated among his friends in written copies, their printing 
having been prohibited by the Austrian state censor. The 
final edition consists of the Prologue and five Cantoes, 
altogether of 645 sonnets. The Prologue is written in 
ancient classic distichs (in couplets of one hexameter and 
one pentameter). The sonnets are Petrarcan, consisting 
of 14, nine and ten syllable lines; their meter is trochaic. 
Kollar was an adept in writing both these forms. He 
adopted the ancient distichs and the more modern 
sonnets to show that his mother tongue was sufficiently 
fluent, musical and rich enough to enable him to express 
his hghest ideals and his profoundest emotions in such 
highly technical and artistic forms and melodious rhymes. 
Petrarca was Kollar's pattern as to his technique. In his 
diction and conceptions, however, Kollar followed "one 
of the greatest poets of all times", Dante Alleghieri. 
Undoubtedly the divinity of Dante, Beatrice, floated be- 
fore Kollar's vision when he was creating his poetic 
fancy, the idealized Mina. The last two Cantoes, "Lethe" 
and "Acheron" describing the Slav Heaven and Hell are 
unquestionably in imitation of Dante. But in analyzing 
the "Daugther of Slavia" the facts that the magnificent 
conceptions, the multitude of inimitable poetic beauties 
and the classic and delicate diction of the "Divina Co- 
meda" influenced Kollar, and that he knew Lord Byron's 
"Child Harold", should not be given first importance, 
because, it must be remembered, Kollar from his child- 
hood was particularly captived with the mellifluous 
character of his mother tongue. In accentuation, fluency, 
richness of words and of descriptive terms and phrases, 
the Slovak language can be compared only to the classic 
Greek of Attica. 

Such a language was at the disposition of Kollar; 
and if he, instead of writing his poetry in foreign forms, 



28 

had adopted his meters directly from the poetry of his 
own people, as the later poets did and the modern ones 
are doing, he would have been more original and effect- 
ive. But even as it is he reached the masses of the people. 
Because the first edition of the "Daughter of Slavia" was 
rather small, and because the enemies of the Slovaks 
bought up and destroyed as many copies of those that 
appeared on the shelves of the book stores as they could, 
the Slovaks took copies either of the entire book or of 
some of its parts. 

This was done by the common people also, such as, 
farmers, mechanics, teachers in villages and especially 
by the students in the academies. On all sides, men, 
women, boys and girls learned whole sections by heart 
and recited the sonnets. His crystallized thoughts, ex- 
pressed in such poetic language, were rapidly becoming 
the property of the entire nation. Kollar soon had a host 
of enthusiastic disciples. Among the first was that 
renowned trinity, consisting of a poet, a scholar and a 
statesman, Michael M. Hodza (1811 — 1870), Louis 
Stur (1815—1856) and Joseph M. Hurban (1817— 
1888). These were followed by a whole constellation of 
lesser stars, all earnest men who by word of mouth and 
in writing spread the Slavic national consciousness and 
enlightment; Kuzmany, Zello, Ivan Chalupka, Samuel 
Chalupka, Jonas Zaborsky, Samuel Tomasik, Krai, Kalin- 
cak, Stephen Marko Daxner, Botto, Francisci, Matuska, 
etc. The "Daughter of Slavia" had a similar effect upon 
the nearest kin of the Slovaks, the Bohemians. 

The center around which Kollar' s teachings grav- 
itate is Slavic Reciprocity. This idea was in the 30*s of 
the last Century christened as Panslavism, and as such it 
became known all over Europe and even beyond its 
borders. 

SLAVIC RECIPROCITY-PANSLAVISM. 

Not only men and books but words also have their 
fate. It not infrequently happens that in the brains and 
on the lips of superficial or malicious persons the meaning 
of a word is distorted so that ultimately it is taken to 
mean just the contrary to what it was intended to ex- 



29 

press. It is difficult to find a word whose meaning was 
more distorted and falsified by its enemies than that of 
Panslavism. It was maltreated by the Teutons and by 
the Magyars. They proclaimed in newspapers and 
books, on the floors of parliaments, at public gatherings, 
from the pulpits and in schools that Panslavism was a 
movement to exterminate Germanism, Magyarism and 
then the rest of the world, and to establish every where 
Slavic political supremacy and tyranny. According to 
their interpretation, Panslavism meant the destruction of 
all civilization, culture and liberty in Europe. That it 
was an evil, nay a criminal tendency which must at all 
cost be uprooted and burnt. Consequently a crusade 
was proclaimed against all believers in Slavic Reciprocity. 
In parliaments and by religious synods laws were passed 
against it: every one who fell under the suspicion of the 
informers was hailed before the civil and ecclesiastical 
tribunals for "sympathyzing with Panslavism". When- 
ever some depraved state official, priest or doctor (e. g. 
B. Griinwald, department head in the Department of the 
Interior) committed a henious crime, he could easily 
escape its consequences by simply whispering into the 
ear of the committing magistrate that he was only fight- 
ing Panslavism. Such things happened in Hungary, 
Austria and Prussia (See the Laws of Expropriation 
against the Poles of Posen, a thing impossible in the 
United States). These persecutions were not dissimilar 
from those of the early Christians. But this explenation 
of Panslavism was but a specious pretext for the Teuto- 
nic, Magyar and Turkish tyranny over the Slavs. 

The most authoritative, reliable and correct ex- 
pounder of any doctrine, every conception and idea is its 
author. What did Kollar mean by Slavic Reciprocity? 

The following can be considered a summary of 
what he says in his "Daughter of Slavia": The Slavic 
people have from prehistoric times inhabited by right of 
peaceful possession and not of conquest the countries 
from the Island of Ruegen to the Ural mountains and 
from the Baltic to the Adriatic seas and to Constantin- 
ople; they have by their indefatigable and hard labor 
developed and made productive these extensive do- 
mains; they have suffered for a thousand years all man- 



30 

ner of wrongs, opressions and persecutions at the hands 
of the rapacious Teutons, Huns, Tartars and Turks; it is 
a decree of the Almighty, written across the pages of 
history, that mankind cannot approach its ideal by 
negativing its nature and that by physically and spiritually 
murdering nations the aims of humanity cannot be 
attained; consequently the Slavs must by united efforts 
defend their natural rights, preserve the seeds of their 
national characteristics and raise from them cosmopolitan 
civilization, enlightment and liberty, for only through the 
cultivation of the national spirit can these seeds be made 
to blossom and bear fruit. A renegade is the lowest 
reprobate and degenerate.*) 

"Death is the just penalty of murder, arson, robbery, 
treason and poisoning; pride, envy, fraud and lechery, 
undermining morality and breeding abomination, are the 
children of deepest Hell, but all these are of the whiteness 
of driven snow when compared to the scarlat crime, 
which robs, spreads evil, destroys itself, defames ances- 
tors and pollutes descendants, the crime of the ingrate to 
his nation" (Daughter of Slavia, Canto II, Sonnet 121). 

Kollar's Slavic Reciprocity does not call for venge- 
ance for wrongs suffered, but only demands the pre- 
vention of further wrongs. While he said that "so much 
blood and ink were spilt by no enemy as by the Teutons 
in their attempts to exterminate the Slavs" he im- 
mediately added; "He is fit for liberty who can place 
true value on it; whoso places chains on slaves is a slave 
himself". 

According to Kollar, if the Slavs should unite for 
the purpose of raising themselves to the highest spiritual 
altitudes, they must not desire that the Teuton, the Anglo- 
Saxon, the Frenchman or the Italian be prevented from 
trying for the same hights. On the contrary, his 
doctrine demands that every nation be at liberty, — 
but without suppressing or destroying others, — to strive 

* )The translator is not a poet and he could never master tin 
intricacies of the sonnet, so rather than to torture the English 
language by trying to put the quotations here cited into bad verse, 
he gives their free meaning with great regret, for thereby he 
deprives them of their poetic beauty.) 



31 

for the attainment of the ideals of humanity. "Look 
upon thy nation but as a mould of humanity; when thou 
call est for a Slav, there must respond a man''. 

Kollar never wanted the Slavs to become a nation 
of conquerors and plunderers. He well understood the 
natural inclination of the Slavic soul to suffer rather than 
to cause suffering. He was of the same opinion as the 
late Leo Nikolajevic Tolstoj, who in his book "Koniec 
Vieka" (The End of an Era", 1905) demonstrated that 
the Russian nation has no ambitions to rule over others. 

How diametrically opposed to each other are Kol- 
lar* s Slavic Reciprocity and the Teutonic Pangermanism ! 
In 1876 Dr. Pfeiderer, in his preface to the translation 
of "Divina Comedia" explained that Dante himself ex- 
pected the salvation of his nation through the "German 
World Empire'' (deutsches Weltkaisertum). "Die Blonde 
Bestie (The Blond Beast) a book published some seven 
or eight years ago is the most striking picture of Pan- 
germanism. In it Germanism is represented as the only 
true civilization, because Christ himself was a Panger- 
manist! Pangermanism cannot conceive of national 
developement, of human progress, of the attainment of 
ideals without the subjection of other nations, the 
extinction of their languages and the deprivation of their 
right to individual self government. This Teutonic 
brigandage reared its bloody head since the days of 
Charles the Great to this very day, and Slavic Reciprocity 
alone can finally put it down, just as Slavic might has 
rolled back the Tartar hordes. 

Kollar and his bosom friends Safarik, by their inter- 
course, confirmed each other in their belief that the Slavs 
should unite politically also, under the leadership of the 
most powerful Slavic branch, the Russian, but they did 
not give expression to this their belief, because in their 
days that would have meant death. Notwithstanding 
this however, Kollar fearlessly hurled his shafts against 
the Teutonic the Magyar and the Turkich excesses, 
beastial rapacity, and at the same time like a true prophet, 
he displayed to the view of his nation, oppressed for a 
thousand years but now awakening to its destiny, his 
conception of its future glory and greatness. 



32 

"What will become of us Slavs in a hundred years? 
What will become of Europe? In spite of the deluge, 
the Slavic spirit will spread to its utmost limits; and the 
language upon which the Teuton looks as that of serfs 
will resound beneath the palace roofs and will be on the 
lips of foes; culture, too, will flow through Slavic chan- 
nels; the costumes, habits and the songs of our people 
will become the fashion on the Seine and Elbe. Oh, for 
the days of Slavic preeminence! I wish I were living 
then, or if dead, I wish to come to life again". 

Kollar uttered these prophetic words about the year 
1824. Since then not a hundred years have elapsed 
and who can doubt that his prophecy is about to be ful- 
filled? 

World renowned German, French and English 
universities have already founded Slavic faculties; the 
works of the Slavic authors, particularly Russian and 
Polish, are already read by the entire cultured world; 
Slavic works of art, music, painting and sculpture are 
already admired and prized from one end of the world 
to the other; Slavic brains are contributing their quota to 
the world's fund of knowledge, their share to its in- 
ventions and their measure to the wealth of nations; but 
above all, the central idea of Slavic Reciprocity, the 
brotherhood of all nations, has already permiated the 
minds of the western sociologists and statesmen, who, 
especially the Slavophils and the French nationalists, are 
already proclaiming the beneficial results which it will 
produce by reviving and rejuvenating the declining, nay 
decrepit nations of Western Europe. 

John Kollar, then, was not only a narrow enthu- 
siast but a prophet of the most exalted ideal of humanity, 
universal brotherhood, and deserves credit and appre- 
ciation not only from his own nation, into which he 
breathed a new soul, but from the entire civilized world 
also. 



JAN KOLLAR 

Zivotopisny nastin. 



SPRACOVALI: 

slovenskp: PETER S. KOMPIS 

anglicky: JAN KULAMER. 



VYDALA : 

' T ' 



Slovenskd Liga v Amerike. 



TLAdOU P. JAMRISKA & CO., 88 So. 13th STREET, PITTSBURGH, PA 




jAn kollAr. 



Uvod. 



'EDZI svetovymi problemami najnovsiej doby 

M\\) silne do popredia tisne sa otazka slavianska. 
\\ Pred devafdesiat rokmi bola to otazka temer 
vylucne literarna, no behom devat'nasteho a 
pociatkom beziaceho storocia vzrastla na ideu politicku 
i socialnu i ekonomicku. Otazka ta stava sa takreceno 
medzinarodnou. 

Vznikla prirodzene s budenim sa narodneho pove- 
domia europejskych narodnych kmenov. Povedomie 
toho, ze Rusi, Poliaci, Cesi, Slovaci, Juhoslaviani tvorili 
v davnoveku jeden narod, zilo v slavianstve od sta a sta 
rokov. Ved* uz rusky, takzvany Nestorov Letopis i — 
pochadzajuci povodne z Xi. stoletia hovori o spolocnom 
povode slavianskych narodov, ktore len ked' rozsirili sa 
na juh, vychod i zapad prijali rozlicne mena. Starf de- 
jepisci (Cech Kosmas, r. 1125, Poliak Gallus, r. 1110, 
Juhoslavian Orbini, r. 1601) shoduju sa v mienke, ze 
Slaviani su narod jedneho plemena a lisia sa len vyslov- 
nost'ou reci a niektorymi odchylnymi slovami. Ale i v 
listinach panovnikov danskych, meklenburskych, nemec- 
kych, pomoranskych atd*. menujii sa Slaviani spolocnym 
menom "Slavi" "quod slavice dicitur" duces reges Sla- 
vorum , \ 

Starozitnicke pamiatky (archaeologicke) dokazuju, 
ze Slaviani zili v Luzici, Sliezsku, v Uhorsku (v susedstve 



Rimavy) uz v dobe novokamennej (neolithickej) a vca- 
snej bronzovej. I neslavianski, rimanski, grecki, arab- 
ski kronikari, zemo- a dejepisci od I. az do XII. stoletia 
(od Plinia Secundusa az po Arabov — Al Bekri-ho a 
Edrisi-ho spominajii rozsiahlu vlast' slaviansku a jej na- 
rody. 

Ale pod navalom divokych narodov (Germanov, 
Asdingov, Silingov, Hunov, Mad'arov, Tatarov, Turkov) 
ktore sa v stredoveku prez slavianske zeme prehanaly a 
suvisle slavianstvo na mnohych miestach rozcesly, 
oslablo, utuchlo povedomie slavianskej spolupatricnosti, 
tym skor, ze prave najvyvinutejsie vetve zapadne: Obo- 
driti, Veleti (Lutici) Srbi (vsetko od Baltickeho mora az 
do terajsieho Saska, a od Gdanska (Danzig) az po te- 
rajsie Holstynsko boly od 8. do 12. storocia temer uplne 
vyhubene a zciastky i ponemcene. 

No ideu javiacu sa v pnrode a dejinach mozno na cas 
pridusit', ale udusit' nie. 

Prislo 13., 14., 15. storocie.. Krute vojny Nemcov 
a Turkov proti Slavianom neustavaly Ale reformacia 
Wiclifovska, Husova, Lutherovska i Kalvinova vztycily 
zasadu reci materinskej, v cirkvi i state. Zvlaste Husiti 
boli horlivymi narodovcami. I sam Luther uznaval, ze 
"ja, Zwingli, Melanchton boli sme, ba sme Husiti" (Vid' : 
Ranke, Dejiny reformacie). Hus sa celou vahou charak- 
teru svojho vzoprel proti germanizacnym snaham na 
universite prazskej. Jeho bojovni naslednici v bojoch 
za svobodu svedomia i politicku neodvislost' zbranou v 
rukach ubili temer celu Europu. Zacala mohutniet' i 
drzava ruska. PoFsko po konecnom zlamani Nemecke- 
ho Ritierskeho Radu a utvorenim jednotnej vlady zmo- 
hutnelo politicky na vonok. Tedy zdalo sa, ze severne 
a zapadne Slavianstvo pride k silnemu povedomiu spo- 



locnych cieFov. Po patnastfrocnych vojnach husitskych 
vyvinovalo sa Cesko v narodnom i politickom smere 
dobre. Dl'a vrodeneho slavianskeho citu Fudskej rovno- 
pravnosti mestianske i dedinske sedliacke obyvateFstvo 
vymohlo si iste svobody. Ale netrvalo to dlho. Na 
podnety nemeckych panovnikov a vladobaznych ritie- 
rov vypukly nabozenske i politicke rozbroje d'alej. R. 
1485 v Kutnej Hore pozbavene boly mesta zastupiteF- 
stva na snemoch a sedliactvo bolo zakonami uvedene do 
stavu osobneho nevol'nictva — skutocneho otroctva. 
Medzitym Turci opanovali cele Juhoslavianstvo a po bit- 
ke u Mohaca i temer cele Uhorsko s cast'ou Slovenska. 
Nemcom z rodu Habsburgskeho podarilo sa dostat' na 
kraFovsky tron cesky. Rozopre, utisky so strany sFach- 
ty trvaly d'alej az do bitky na Bielej Hore (r. 1620) v 
ktorej padol samostatny stat cesky. V 30-rocnej vojne 
vykynozene a vyhnate bolo z ceskej vlasti z troch mil- 
lionov Fudi 2,200,000. Ovsem i Nemecko roztresklo 
sa na mnoho drobnych statov. Avsak tieto akotak spo- 
jene boly "risskym snemom" a udrziavane v narode po- 
vedomie plemennej jednoty. Ale u Slavianov narodny 
cit upadol. Na severozapade kvarili ich Nemci, na juhu 
Turci. Avsak treba uznat', ze Slavianstvu na jeho byte, 
reci, vobec rydzosti poskodili Turci mnoho, ale Nemci 
nesmierne viae. 

Slavianska myslienka zaspala, ale neumrela. I v do- 
bach vseobecnej politickej rozdrobenosti a domacich ne- 
svarov, vyskytovali sa buditelia, ktori razne vyhlasovali 
"jazyk slaviansky za spolocny Rusom, Cechom, Polia- 
kom i Srbom." Cech Jan Blahoslav (1571) vo svo- 
jej grammatike (1571) hovori o "dialektoch slavian- 
.skych": ceskom, slovenskom, hrvatskom od Uhorskej 



zeme az po Carihrad rozsirenom, a tak i o poFskom a 
ruskom. Tedy Vseslavian! 

Poliaci: Orzechowski (1564) i Gornicki (1566) 
vo svojich knihach radia, aby sa slavianski spisovatelia 
blizili tak, zeby prejimali potrebne slova a vyrazy z ja- 
zykov bratskych slavianskych. 

Este i potomok polabskych Slavianov, svetochyrny 
a genialny myslitel' polyhistor Leibnitz vyslovil sa r. 
1713. v Torgove pred carom ruskym, Petrom Velikym: 
"Nas povod je ten isty. Obidvaja sme Slaviani". Radii 
carovi, aby dal sostavovat' potrebne pomocky k poznaniu 
jazyka ruskeho, tak ako na Leibnitzov podnet so sbiera- 
ne boly pamiatky po Obodritoch a Drevanoch. 

Luzicky ucenec, Srb, Abraham Frencel (Brancel) 
r. 1693. hovori o "slavnom a mohutnom narode sla- 
vianskom ktoremu by sa iste cely svet poklonil, keby Sla- 
viani mali tol'ko st'astia kol'ko maju cnosti.*' I vzbu- 
dzoval nadeje v lepsiu buducnost luzickych Srbov. 
(Tento ostrovcek slaviansky v nemeckom mori ma este 
dodnes asi 150,000 siivisle byvajucich Srbov. Homa a 
Dolna Luzica, juinovychodne od Berlina a severovy- 
chodne od Drazdian. ) 

K vseslavianskej rodine prihlasovali sa i Juhoslavia- 
ni v Dalmacii, Hrvatsku, Korutanoch (Karintia) v Srbii 
a Bulharsku. Hrvat Faustin Vrancic v predmluve ku 
slovniku hrvatsko-slovinskemu (r. 1605) pise: niet va£~ 
sieho jazyka na svete, pokial' vedomo, od nasho slavian- 
skeho, lebo tento zaujima dobry diel Europy i Asie". 
Tak i Slovinec Bohoric (1584) prizvukuje uzke pribu- 
zenstvo jazykov juznoslavianskych s ruskym a pol'skym 
i ceskym. Bosensky Srb, Juraj Krizanic, ktory vysteho- 
val sa do Ruska, chytil sa do hlbsej prace: napfsal r. 
1 665 slaviansku grammatiku. Krizanic videl spasu ostat- 



nych rozdrobenych a potlacenych Slavianov jedine v 
Rusku. 

Tak budili slavianske povedomie vedomci, basnici, 
knazi, vsetkych vetvf tohto naroda v 16., 17. a 18. sto- 
roci. Ale bolo to len povedomie zriedkavych jednot- 
livcov, ktori nevladali rozvlnit? siroke a hlboke vrstvy 
naroda 

Cele Slavianstvo prebudilo sa k povedomemu zi- 
votu az v prvej polovici devat'nasteho storocia a o to pre- 
budenie maju najvacsie, neuvadle zasluhy dvaja Slova- 
ci: Pavel Jozef Safarik a Jan Kollar. Prvy na europej- 
skej urovni stojaci ucenec-dejepisec, druhy genialny bas- 
nik. 

Zapadne narody, zial'bohu podnes vel'mi malo ve- 
dia o Slavianstve vobec o jeho dejinach, kulture, zivo- 
te, umeni a slavianskou ideou zaoberaju sa i vysoko po- 
staveni muzovia zriedkavejsie, nez africkymi koloniami. 
A predsa slavianska otazka uz teraz hybe dvestopat'de- 
siat millionmi narodov; totiz jednych co za fiu pracuju 
a tych, ktori by ju chceli zabit?. 

Tedy najvys potrebne je aspon strucne oboznamit? 
sa s jednym z jej najprednejsich predstavitel'ov, s Ja- 
nom Kollarom. 

Tomu cieFu maju sluzif nasledujuce riadky. 



Zivotopisne data. 

Jan Kollar narodil sa 29. jula 1 793. v mestecku 
Mosovciach, stolici Turcianskej na Slovensku (Severnom 
Uhorsku. ) 

Slovensko-Severne Uhorsko, je krajina plna prirod- 
nych i Fudskych kras i prirodnych i duchovnych pokla- 
dov, dosial' ovsem nevyuzitych, ba sotva ze odkrytych. 

Jeden francuzsky narodnohospodarsky spisovateF. 
ktory r. 1886. cestoval Hornym Slovenskom, vyslovil sa: 
"Ked' tu vidim tu suladnu rozmanitost' vrchov, dolin a 
roviniek, tie bystre, krystalove, ale mohutne potoky, vo- 
dopady, bujne lesy, mohutne loziska nerastov a malebne 
strojny, krasneho typu Tud, s vytribenym umeleckym 
oraamentom v nevycerpaternych motivoch prevedenom 
na oblekoch, zenskych, muzskych i detskych, chalupach, 
domoch, kastiel'och, chramoch, na domacom naradi i 
riade, a vidim tie spiace poklady prfrodne, tie sily vod- 
ne: tak sa mi zda, akoby sa v tomto kraji maly uskutoc- 
nif stare povesti o carovnych zamkoch a zlatych pala- 
coch." 

Nuz a stolicu Turciansku i sami domorodi Slovaci 
uznavaju za jednu z najkrajsich casti Slovenska. A v 
tomto krasnom okoli narodil sa Jan Kollar. 

Jeho otec Matej, bol vaznym mest'anom; byval rych- 
tarom, inokedy notarom obecnym. Ale hlavnym povo- 
lanim jeho bolo pol'ne hospodarstvo, a pobocne ma- 
siarsky obchod. Dom bol stredne zamozny. Otec bol 
prisny, sporovny, nabozny, neunavne pilny v praci i mod- 
litbe. Ale l'ahko vznetlivy, prchlivy, a v umysloch za- 
novity. Pomerne k svojmu povolaniu bol dost vzdela- 
ny; okrem l'udovej skoly doma, chodil i do pociatocnych 
tried strednej skoly v d'alekom Asode, kde sa poducil 
trochu latinsky. Matka, Katarina Drozd, pochadzala z 
dobrej kupeckej rodiny. Vierovyznania boli protestant- 
skeho luteranskeho. 



Rodicia vychovavali svojho synka Janka v prisnom 
naboznom duchu. Do prvej skoly chodil v rodnom me- 
stecku. Uz co desat'-rocny na poziadanie mosovskych 
paneniek slozil im styri versiky k uvitaniu biskupa. V 
mestianskej skole mosovskej, ako vtedy vobec vo vset- 
kych skolach mestianskych povazovali latincinu za za- 
klad vsetkej vzdelanosti a preto na vyucovanie tejto reci 
kladli najvacsiu vahu. V Severnych Uhrach latincina po- 
drzala svoje panstvo dlhsie, nez u inych narodov. 

Sice Slovaci mali uz z casov Cyrilla a Methoda ur- 
cite od r. 885. svoj preklad biblie. Od 1564 — 1588 
mali spolu s Cechmi uz klassicku, cesko-slovensku Bib- 
liu Kralicku. Za takzv. Veleslavinskej doby 1560 — 
1600 kvida literatura v Cechach a jej diela zname boly 
na Slovensku. Od r. 1631. sirily sa recou i obsahom 
veFkolepe spisy Jana Amosa Komenskeho (Comenius). 
A predsa pod tlakom akoby nejakej kliatby na Slovensku 
v 1 7. i 1 8. a ciastocne az 19. storoci ucili sa a hovorili 
latinsky nielen zemski pani, panie, ale i kucharky, me- 
stania a sluhovia. Ovsem len vtedy ked' chceli ukazat', 
ze su vzdelani. 

Tak i Kollar, neobycajne nadany, pilny ziak, hor- 
live ucil sa tuto mrtvu rec. Ba sam vyznava, ze v dobe 
chlapectva prial si, aby vsetky ine reci zanikly a vsetci 
l'udia aby len latinsky hovorili. No jeho rozumny uci- 
teF Sulek viedol svojich ziakov i k laske k reci materin- 
skej. Tak ucinkoval na Kollara i novy ucitel', Burjan. 
Chlapec medzitym rad chodil po krasnych strafiach a le- 
soch svojho malebneho rodiska; nacuval melodicke pie- 
sne znic, hrabacok, zencov a koscov po poliach a lukach; 
piesne to obdivuhodne jasavymi i melancholickymi me- 
lodiami i esteticky, poeticky vytribenym obsahom. 

Po skonceni domacej skoly dal ho otec — 1 3-roc- 
neho — do gymnasiuma blfzkeho mesta Kremnice na 
studia. Tak oddal sa menovite hlbsiemu studovaniu la- 
tinskych klassikov. Nadobudol si takej znalosti, ze zruc- 
ne skladal latinske reci a chronostichy. V Kremnici na- 
ruzive zaoberal sa i kreslenim a mal'bou. Bola to vtedy 
v torn rneste zal'uba vseobecna. Ucil sa i nemcinu. 

Po dvoch rokoch vratil sa z Kremnice s vytecnymi 



10 

vysvedceniami. Prisiel domov s umyslom, ze na buducu 
jasen pojde na d'al'sie studia. Ale zbytocne "prakticky" 
otec chcel mat' zo syna pomocnika pri hospodarstve a re- 
mesle, nuz dal ho na masiarstvo. Ale toto zamestnanie 
sa synovi naskrze nepacilo; zanechal ucnovstvo. Tu na- 
hnevany otec vyhnal 1 6-rocneho Jana z domu a tento 
hnany tuzbou za vyssim vzdelanim, v fazkom dusevnom 
boji opustil dom rodicoysky a odisiel do ned'alekeho me- 
stecka, Slovenskeho Pravna, ku svojmu bratancovi, me- 
nom tiez Janovi Kollarovi, tamejsiemu mlademu ucite- 
l'ovi. Tento povzbudil svojho pokrevneho, aby v svo- 
jom umysle vytrval. Ved* ze sa im podari najst' sposob, 
akym sa dostane do skol. O nedlho prisiel ta na navste- 
vu mosovsky ucitel' Burjan a pojal Kollara nazpat do 
Mosoviec, k sebe za ucitel'skeho pomocnika. Za rok bol 
pomocnikom. Otec ani potom nechcel nic pocut' o torn, 
zeby mal na d'alsie skoly synove nieco obetovat'. A ti- 
cha, laskava matka len malickosti mohla dodaf. Ale 
ucitel' Burjan zaopatril mu podporu pri gymnasiume v 
Banskej Bystrici. Tu zivil sa sukromnym vyucovanim 
kresleniu a mal'be; ovsem skolske hodiny riadne navste- 
voval. Zvlaste dobre zbadal velike duchovne dary svoj- 
ho ziaka ucitel' Magda a zaujal sa za Kollara v hmotnom 
i dusevnom ohl'ade. V Banskej Bystrici studoval Kol- 
lar najviac latinskych basnikov, Horaca, Vergila, Ovidia 
a filozofa Boethia. 

Za dva roky skoncil studia gymnazialne. Bolo to 
r. 1912. Odisiel s najlepsim vysvedcenim. Na budu- 
cu jasen chcel isf do Presporku ucit' sa za knaza. 

Ale na prazdniny domov k otcovi nesmel fstf! A 
penazi nemal. Tedy s odporucanim skolskej spravy 
bansko-bystrickej vybral sa na supplikacku, — bol sup- 
plikantom. 

Supplikantmi byvali chudobni ziaci, ktori po bliz- 
sich, d'alsich stoliciach Uhorska medzi majetnejsim obe- 
censtvom sbierali milodary s jednej ciastky na skolu, kto- 
ra ziactvu cez skolsky rok davala spolocne obedy, bud*- 
to za maly poplatok, alebo uplne zdarma — a s druhej 
ciastky na seba, na d'alsie studia. Kazdy supplikant 
dostal sberaciu knizocku a legitimaciu i vydeleny mu bol 



11 

urcity okres, v ktorom smel sberaf. Supplikant cestuval 
riadne pesky od obce k obci, od fary ku fare, od skoly 
ku skole. 

Tak precestoval i Kollar najprv naj Severn ejsie sto- 
lice svojej vlasti, Lip to v a Oravu a potom i Dolniu Zem 
— Juzne Uhorsko. Cestou na Dolnej Zemi tu i tarn 
knazi vacsich cirkvi sue zahrnutf mnohymi povinnost'a- 
mi, davali mu kazatf v kostoloch. Za tieto kazne dostal 
nejaky honorar. Nieco pripadlo mu co odmena z navy- 
beranych milodarov supplikacnych, nieco k tomu prilo- 
zili pribuzm a tak mohol sa v jaseni 1812 vybrat? do 
Presporku na bohoslovecky ustav. 

Zivnostf ako i znacny plat uciteFom musel si nado- 
byvat? sukromnym vyucovanim. No po roku co vybor- 
nemu ziakovi sverene mu bolo docasne miesto ucitel'a a 
spravcu pri presporskom sirotinci. Ustav tento bol do- 
Hal' zanedbany, ale Kollar uviedol tarn vychovu dl'a za- 
sad Salzmannovskych a Basedowskych i priviedol ho k 
rozkvetu, tak ze i mest'ania a pani posielali ta svoje de- 
ti-nesiroty. 

Pri torn neunavne vzdelaval i seba. Ucil sa sukrom- 
ne vsetkemu, co mu tehdajsia biedna skolska vyucba v 
Presporku neposkytovala. Ucil sa grectinu, francuzsti- 
nu, taliancinu, anglictinu; oboznamoval sa s jazykom sta- 
roslavianskym. Pestoval i rastlinopis (botaniku), ma- 
thematiku, hvezdarstvo. Cvicil sa v speve, hudbe, i tan- 
ci. To vsetko mienil upotrebit? v praktickom, spolocen- 
skom zivote. Okrem toho cital Ifflanda, Wielanda, Klop 
stocka, basnikov to nemeckych a Cervantesovho Don 
Quixota v nemeckom preklade. Ale tieto diela nemaly 
nanho zvlastneho vplyvu. 

Mesto Presporok bolo v tej dobe zvlaste zanimave. 
Lezi pri Dunaji ned'aleko Viedne na hlavnej ciare do 
Pesti veducej. Co vyznamnejsi l'udia, umelci, vedom- 
ci radi sa zastavili v Presporku. Kollar videl tu vitfazov 
nad Napoleonom z bitky u Lipska, ked' prisli zavse z 
Viederiskeho kongresu do Presporku na zabavku. Vi- 
del i ako nel'udsky nakladali Rakusania s francuzskymi 
zajatymi, atd*. 



12 

Tu oboznamil sa i s Frantiskom Palackym, ktory 
tiez v Presporku, na tej istej skole, co Kollar studoval, 
a neskor stal sa slavnym dei'episcom ceskym. Studovali 
tarn vtedy i viaceri Juhoslaviani, Srbi, s ktorymi sa tiez 
priatel'sky stykal. 

Po trojrocnom pobyte v Presporku slozil predpisa- 
ne zkusky bohoslovecke a zamysl'al ist' cieFom dovrse- 
nia skolskeho vzdelania na niektoru nemecku universitu. 
Ale aby si k tomu zaopatril potrebne peniaze, predbez- 
ne na poldruha roka prijal vychovavatel'ske miesto u 
jednej zamoznej rodiny v Banskej Bystrici. Tu obo- 
znamil sa s tamo j sim od neho len o 6 rokov starsim fa- 
rarom ev. cirkvi, Samuelom Roznajom. Roznaj bol muz 
vysoko vzdelany, hlboko citny, sposobami uchvatny. 
Odusevneny Slovak a Slavian. Na vyvin Kollara mal 
veliky vplyv. Z vel'kej casti Roznaj ovi mozno d'akovaf. 
ze sa Kollar stal vesfcom Slavianstva. Roznay vsak 
zomrel uz o niekol'ko mesiacov neskor. 

Kollar v jaseni 1817. vybral sa na universitetu do 
Jeny. Zaopatriv si v Budine (vtedy este nespojenom s 
Pest'ou, ale uz sidlom niektorych krajinskych uradov) 
cestovny list (pass), cestoval cez Presporok, Viedefi, do 
Prahy. Tu osobne oboznamil sa s najprednejsimi ce- 
skymi ucencami, spisovatel'mi, zvlaste Joz. Jungmannom 
a vel'kym slavistom (filologom) Joz. Dobrovskym. No 
Praha bola vtedy mestom ackol'vek prevazne ceskym, ale 
po nemecky hovoriacim. Na Kollara urobila zial'ny do- 
jem. Vyslovil sa o Prahe, ze vyzera jako "skamenele 
dejiny ceskeho naroda". Vtedy netusil, ze mesto to sta- 
ne sa behom niekol'ko rokov mohutnym, ziarivym stre- 
diskom ceskeho vedeckeho, umeleckeho i hospodarskeho 
zivota. 

Z Prahy iduc zastavil sa na oar dni v Drazd'anoch, 
kde obzrel si zvlaste tamejsiu, svetochyrnu obrazaren. 
Odtial' cez Lipsko dosiel do Jeny. Bol vtedy 24-rocny. 

Jena, mesto vojvodstva Sasko-Weimarskeho, je co 
tyka sa vyznamu narodno-hospodarskeho este i dnes me- 
sto nepatrne. Na pociatku 1 9. storocia malo vsak sotva 
10,000 obyvatel'ov, ale medzi nimi 2 — 3000 univer- 
sitnych posluchacov. V duchovnom ohl'ade bolo vtedy 



13 

jednym z najvacsich ohnisk nemeckej vedy a so sused- 
nym mestom Weimarom ( 1 2 mil \ — 1 9 kilometrov od 
Jeny) i sidlom najvacsich basnickych geniov. Uz pred 
prichodom Kollara do Jeny boli tam na universite pred- 
nasali slavni filozofi: Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, i basnik 
Schiller. V dobe Kollarovej vyucovali tam ich odcho- 
vanci, Fries a Oken. Cely duch universitity, profesorov 
i ziactva bol svobodomyslny; vsetko horelo za pravdou 
a svobodou. Vo Weimare byvali v torn case Herder, 
Wieland, Schiller, Goethe, Arndt a inf. Goetheho po- 
znal Kollar osobne i prekladal prefiho niektore slovenske 
l'udove piesne do nemciny. Velikan Goethe upozornil 
Kollara na veliku poeticku hodnotu narodnych piesni a 
ponevac i znamenity Herder uz r. 1778. bol vydal svo- 
ju chyrnu sbierku "Volkslieder" ("Narodne piesne" do 
ktorej zabral i mnoho piesni slavianskych, menovite srb- 
skych), Kollar umienil si cim uplnejsie sosbierat' piesne 
slovenske. 

Kollarovi zjavil sa v Jene novy svet. Na svetovej 
vedeckej urovni stojaci professoria, na tu dobu bohata 
universitna kniznica, v blizkom meste Lipsku tiez sveto- 
chyrna universita, sjednotena dva roky pred prichodom 
Kollarovym do Jeny s universitou hallskou a roku 1816. 
s erfurtskou; krasne okolie pri rieke Sale, vsetko to po- 
sobilo na vnimavu dusu Kollarovu zvlastne, hlboko. Sam 
rozprava o torn vo svojich rozpomienkach z mladosti 
("Pamati") : "Jena a cele okolie, ba cela cesta cez Sasko 
ucinila na moju dusu novy, pred tym nikdy neciteny 
dojem. Vsade slavianske mena a neslavianski oby- 
vatelia." 

Studoval theologiu; filozofiu, prirodne vedy a vseo- 
obecne dejiny. Bol by rad obsiahnul vsetky vedy, vsetky 
umenia. Ale nahliadol, ze sa to neda. Tedy aby sa ne- 
rozptylil, zaviedol si isty poriadok studii. 

Okrem toho vsimal si jazykovedy (filologie) a do- 
ma zahrbil sa do citania diel Goetheho, Rousseaua, Cha- 
teaubrianda, Ossiana, Petrarcu a inych. Basnictvo stu- 
doval i s theoretickej stranky. Menovite mocny ucinok 
na Kollarove nazory maly diela Herderove. Totiz Her- 
der uz r. 1 787 vo svojom diele "Ideen zur Geschichte der 



14 

Menschheit", — "Idey k dejinam Fudstva" hovoriac o 
trudnych dejinach narodov slavianskych, pise: "Koleso 
meniveho casu neustale sa toci a ponevac tie narody 
(Slaviani) z najvacsej casti byvaju v najkrajsich kraji- 
nach europejskych, totiz keby boly dokonale vzdelane a 
zacal by sa medzi nimi obchod; a ponevac neda sa ne- 
myslef, ze v Europe zakonodarstva a politika namiesto 
valecneho ducha viae a viae musia a budu podporovaf 
obciansku pilnost' a vzajomne styky medzi narodami: 
tedy i vy slavianske narody, teraz tak hlboko klesle, vo- 
Fakedy pilne a sfastne, prebudfte sa zo svojho dlheho 
tazkeho spanku, a budete od otrockych okovov osvo- 
bodene i budete uzivat' svoje krasne krajiny od Adriatic- 
keho mora az k Tatram, od Donu az ku Ulde a slavitf 
na nich svoje stare slavnosti pokojnei pracovitosti a ob- 
chodu**. 

Herderove idey jeho vlastny narod nemecky ani 
podnes neocenil dostatocne. Ale Kollar pochopil toho 
vzneseneho ducha v plnej hl'bke a podstate. 

Na Jenanskej universite prave v tych rokoch studo- 
val aj iny idealneho vzletu a vysokeho nadania sloven- 
sky mladenec, Jan Benedicti. Tento oboznamil sa s Kol- 
larom, co svojim rodakom dostf skoro. Potom uz v 
svobodnom case, po nedeliach a sviatkovych kratsich 
prazdninach spolu cestuvali po kvetnatych udoliach, stra- 
nach, i dedinach a mesteckach okolo Jeny, blizsfch i 
d'alsich. Tu zvedeli, ze v tomto kraji mena obci, vrchov, 
potokov i rodin su slavianske. Ba ze samo obyvatel'stvo 
este vie, ze je zo slavianskej krvi, len nasilne ponemcene. 
Teda obidvaja priatelia dali sa do studovania starych 
kronik o Slavianstve a vyobrazili si i z tych kusych zprav 
kronikarskych krasnu minulost' slavianskych bratov: i 
zialili, ze tol'ke rodiny naroda boly nemilosrdne vynice- 
ne, alebo odcudzene. Kollar pohruzil sa nasledkom toho 
do historickych a starozitnych studii o Slavianstve. 

Preplnena dusa jeho hl'adala vyraz v basnictve. K 
tomu, aby zacal basnit' dostal podnet zvlastnou uda- 
lost'ou. Na universite bol i professorom znamy, co vy- 
tecny recnik. V blizkej osade. Lobede ochorel vazne 
tamejsi farar Schmidt. Jeho manzelka sla do Jeny po- 



15 

ziadat' biskupa, sucasne i professora na universite, J. G. 
Marezolla, aby vyslal niekoho zastupit' jej muza budvi- 
cej nedele pri sluzbach Bozich. Marezoll odporucil jej 
Kollara. Tedy poziadala tohoto. Kollar este pred ne- 
del'ou vybral sa i s priatel'om Benediktim do Lobedy, 
predstavif sa Schmidtovi a jeho rodine a tu poznal sum- 
nu, 22-rocnu dceru Schmidtovie, Wilhelminu. Videl ju 
bol uz predtym na nejakej zabave. Teraz vsak poznal 
ju v rodicovskom dome a zahorel k nej horucou a nepre- 
mozitel'nou Tubost'ou. Jej otec rozpraval Kollarovi, ze 
i on — Schmidt je slavianskoho povodu. 

Od tych cias Kollar byval castym host'om u Schmi- 
dtov. Zacal pisat? krasne basne, sonetty na svoju zboz- 
iiovanu devu. Zidealizoval si ju ako Petrarca svoju Lau- 
ru a Dante Beatricu, nazval si ju Minou, vybajil si ju co 
"Slavy Dceru" — akoby bohynu slaviansku a v umelec- 
kej forme vyslovil vsetko, cim jeho mlada dusa horela. 

Farar Schmidt v Lobede o nedlho zomrel. Cirkev- 
nici boli si medzitym obl'ubili jeho pomocnika, Kollara 
natoFko, ze mu ponukli urad kazatel'a tej cirkvi. Keby 
to bol prijal,bol by dosiahol spojenie s milovanou devou a 
zaistenu hmotnu postaf. I matka, pani Schmidtova bola 
za to. Povedala milencovi svojej dcery, ze dopusti so- 
brat' sa im len ak ostanu v Nemecku. Inac nechcela ani 
pocut' o torn, zeby jej dcera mala odist' s muzom do 
Uhorska. Matka povazovala Uhorsko za divoku kraji- 
nu. Uhorsko a Sibir znamenalo jej jedno. Tedy Kollar 
musel podstupit' srdcovy boj. No zvit'azila laska k na- 
rodu nad laskou k milenke. Kollar odpovedal lobedan- 
skym cirkevnikom, ze ponevac je on nie Nemec, ale Slo- 
vak, a Nemci maju hojnost' vybornych kazatel'ov, Slovaci 
vs^ 1 ^ nie, tedy ze poklada za svoju povinnost' a urcenie 
pracoyat' v prospech svojho zanedbaneho naroda. Prv 
nezby sa bol navratil do svojej vlasti, bol by rad so svo- 
jimi troma spoluziakmi, Rusmi, siel podivat' sa do Pol'- 
ska a Ruska. Ale jeden z tych Rusov padol v student- 
skom suboji a pozostali dvaja nahlili sa cim skor dostat' 
domov. Tedy Kollar so svojim inym priatel'om na- 
vstivil Sasko, Braniborsko, Pomoransko az po Balticke 
more: ponemcene to krajiny slavianske. "Zdalo sa mu, 



16 

akoby kracal po hroboch drahych zosnulych." Zasiel po- 
tom az do Hollandska, ku hrobu slavneho pedagoga Ko- 
menskeho (Jana Amosa Comeniusa) v Narden-e pri 
Amsterdame. Odtial' plavil sa hore Rynom, potom na 
kuse vysnym Dunajom a konecne zastavil sa na nekol'- 
ko tyzdfiov v Prahe. Tu okrial v priatel'skom kruhu vy- 
tecnych ceskych vlastencov. Konecne vratil sa cez Pres- 
porok do svojho mileho Turca. Ale ani teraz nesmel isf 
otcovi na oci. Tedy uchylil sa ku svojmu, uz spomenu- 
temu bratancovi, Janovi Kollarovi do Slovenskeho Prav- 
na. Leto ztravil tarn v basneni a obdivovani kras toho 
kraja. 

V jaseni roku 1819. evanjelicka nemecko-slovenska 
cirkev v Pesti potrebovala kaplana (pomocneho 
farara), ktory by znal dokonale nemecky i slovensky. 
Biskup Lovich znal Kollara, ako na taky urad vytecne 
sposobneho, odporucal ho a Kollar dostal sa do Pesti. 
No tu dostal sa medzi dva, pot'azne medzi tri ohne. Slo- 
yaci v Pesti ziadali, aby spolocny cirkevny sbor povolil 
na zaklade prirodzeneho prava a dl'a zasad protestan- 
tizmu bohosluzbu v reci materinskej, slovenskej, tak, 
ako to Nemci a Mad'ari uz davno uzivali. Nemci a Ma- 
d'ari sa tomu vzpriecili. No spolocny farar Molnar zo- 
mrel uz po par mesiacoch a slovenski evanjelici vyvolili 
si za svojho kazatel'a Kollara; Nemci vsak ciroho Nemca, 
Kalchbrennera. Slovaci vyzadovali si, aby im boly ur- 
cene hodiny, v ktorych v chrame dotial' spolocnom, mo- 
hli by odbavovat' svoje bohosluzby. Nemci kladli tejto 
ziadosti vsemozne prekazky. Kostol pred Slovakmi zam- 
kli, i cely fararsky byt. Ba v jednu nedel'u dovedli si 
Nemci i stolicny urad so zbrannou assistenciou, aby zaka- 
zal Kollarovi a veriarim vstupit' do chramu. No Kollarovi 
podarilo sa na ten cas odpor premoct'. Nasledovalo od- 
delenie slovenskei cirkvi od nemeckej ; ovsem pri del'be 
majetku obstali Slovaci kratko. No zo svojich novych 
obeti zalozili si pri cirkvi skolu. Kollar vediac, ze za- 
nedbanych Slovakov, ktori za poslednych sto rokov zna- 
sali nevyslovne utisky od Nemcov i Madarov (slovenski 
remeselnici i kupci boli zo svojich obchodov vyhanani, 
sedliaci z vrchnostenskeho nariadenia palicovani len 



17 

len preto, ze chceli sa vzdelavat' i vo svojej reci) treba 
zacatf vzdelavat! od slabikara a citanky, napisal a vyda! 
taketo ucebne knihy pre dietky r. 1825. a 1826. Uz 
predtym (r. 1821.) vydal pod nazvom "Basne" cast' 
svojich zneliek (sonett) a r. 1824. nove znacne rozmno- 
2ene vydanie pod nazvom "Slavy Dcera". Temer po 
kazdom vydani niektoreho diela Kollarovho nemecki 
"nosicia vzdelanosti" ( "Kulturtrager" ) svolavali proti 
nemu nicomne konventy, vyzyvali o zakrocenie cirkevne 
t politicke vrchnosti, hrnuly sa mu urazlive, bezmenne 
listy, vybijali mu obloky na byte a robili mu nocne "ma- 
cacie muziky*' ("Caterwauling"). Tak to sam pise. 

No jeho krotka, vznesena prit'azliva povaha, 
ziskala mu i sFachetnych a mocnych priaznivcov a pria- 
tel'ov este i v protivnickom tabore, a tomu mozno d'a- 
kovat?, ze Kollar v Pesti vobec mohol vydrzat'. Pravda 
nepriatelia neprestali ho prenasledovat' ani neskor; ac- 
koFvek uz menej zurive. 

V takom ustavicnom rozcul'ovani a prepinavej pra- 
ci dva razy upadol do t'azkej nemoci — chrlenia krvi. 
Ale jeho priatelia po obidva razy vyslali ho do vybornych 
liecivych kupel'ov, na ake je Slovensko take bohate, ako 
sotva ktory iny kraj zeme. I zotavil sa — prave v bliz- 
kosti svojho rodiska (v Stubnanskych Teplicach. ) 

Pracoval i potom neunavne v chrame, skole i pri 
spisovatel'skom stole. Sosbieral a podal vzactne prispev- 
ky do epochalneho Jungmanovho "Slovnika cesko-ne- 
meckeho", na ktorom Jungmann a jeho pomocnici pra- 
covali za tridsat'pat' rokov. 

Kollar uz od svojich mladych rokov sbieral l'udove 
piesne slovenske. Ciastku svojej sbierky vydal r. 1823. 
v Pesti, pod nazvom "Piesne svetske l'udu slovenskeho 
v Uhrach" Ale v tejto knihe pornenoval co vydavate- 
l'ov len svojich priatel'ov, historika Safarika a Blahoslava 
(Benediktiho). Svoje meno, co hlavneho sberatel'a, so 
suhlasom priatel'ov zamlcal, ponevac sa obaval, ze jeho 
duchovni spolubratia, knazi, zacnu proti nemu boj, ze 
sa i Fudovou poesiou zaobera. No za jedenast' rokov 
tuto sbierku znamenite rozmnozil a zdokonalil, i vydal r. 
1834 — 35, dva objemne svazky "Narodnie Zpievanky 



18 

cili piesne svetske Slovakov v Uhrach", jak pospoliteho 
l'udu, tak i vyssich stavov sobrane od mnohych, v po- 
riadok uvedene vysvetleniami opatrene a vydane v Bu- 
dine, r. 1834. a 1835." Je to vel'kolepa praca, s akou 
nedaju sa porovnat' len ak o 40 — 60 rokov pozdejsie 
diela ruskych, poFskych, francuzskych a anglickych fol- 
kloristov 

R. 1834. stala sa v sukromnom zivote Kollarovom 
vel'ka zmena, ktora zahojila aspon jednu jeho zivotnu 
ranu. Od jednoho jenanskeho stud en ta, isteho Blazyho, 
dozvedel sa, ze Mfna Schmidtova, jeho zboznovana Sla- 
vy Dcera, zije v Jene a je dosial' svobodna 

Totiz po odchode Kollarovom z Jeny, Minina matka 
vedela prekazit', znemoznit' i dopisovanie medzi svojou 
dcerou a Kollarom. Ba tak sa zda, ze stara Schmidtova 
pomahala k tomu, ze Kollar, ked' uz bol doma, dostal 
chyry, ze jeho Mina umrela. Urcite drzal ju za mrtvu. 
Teraz vsak Blazy tvrdil mu, ze Minina matka umrela. 
Tedy po 1 6. rokoch poziadal znovu Minu o manzelstvo, 
a ked' dostal priaznivu odpoved', vybral sa r. 1835 do 
Nemecka a doviedol si svoju 40-rocnu nevestu domov. 
Manzelstvo to bolo st'astne. Mali z neho jedinu dceru 
L'udmilu. Matka a dcera prezila otca. 

V nasledujiicich rokoch Kollar pilne pracoval na 
sostaveni pod tlac svojich "Nedelnych, sviatocnych i 
prilezitostnych kazni", z ktorych jednotlive uz predtym 
co osobitne sosity vydaval, ako to slovenski farari casto 
robievali. Konecne vydal ich sobrane. A sice I. svazok 
uz r. 1831. a druhy 1844. Spolu vyse 1500 stran. Naj- 
ma tento druhy diel nezaobera sa otazkami beznej cir- 
kevnej theologie, ale su to viae popularne prednasky, 
urcene na to, aby viedly l'ud k vyssiemu povedomeniu 
naboznosti Hlavna ich myslienka je, ze naboznost' a 
narodnost' su sestry. Kollar vedel, ze vsetci veliki re- 
formatori l'udstva dosiahli veliky svoj vplyv hlavne tym 
sposobom, ze svoje idey hlasali prostorozumnou, narod- 
nou recou. I protestantskii reformaciu vazil si hlavne 
preto, ze uvedla materinske jazyky do sluzieb bozich. 
Kollar spravne chapal suvis citov, lasky k rodicom, brat- 
stvu, narodu s citami lasky k Bohu a zretedlne hovoril, 



19 

ze kto sa odcudzuje svojmu narodu, ten nemoze ostatr 
ani milovnikom Boha, ani dobrym vlastencom, ani die- 
tafom, ctitel'om predkov. V uceni nabozenskom hlav- 
nu vahu kladie na mravne zdokonalovanie a zosTachto- 
vanie cloveka. Osadnikom svojim kladol horlive na 
srdce myslienku slavianskej vzajomnosti. 

Basnil uz malokedy. Ako sa sam vyslovil "tehdaj- 
sia doba jej rozkladnymi i smutnymi zjavmi v Uhorsku 
nepovzbudzovala ho k basneniu. 

Jeho kazdodennou cetbou boly teraz spisy obsahu 
historickeho, archaeologickeho, mythologickeho i filo- 
logickeho. 

Pisal clanky do casopisov (magazinov) ceskoslo- 
venskych. Kulturhistoricke a folkloristicke uvahy (es- 
says) a piesnach, povest'ach, zvykoch a slavnost'ach sla- 
vianskych. Vydal svoje myslienky "O literarnej vza- 
jomnosti medzi rozlicnymi konarmi a nareciami (dia- 
lektami) slavianskeho naroda". Toto dielo napisal a 
vydal po nemecky "Ober die literarische Wechselseitig- 
keit zwischen den verschiedenen Stammen und Mundar- 
ten der slavischen Nation." (Pest', 1837. 2. vyd. 1844.) 
Dalej vel'ky spis mythologicky a kulturhistoricky : "Sla- 
va bohyna a povod mena Slavov ci Slavianov". (roku 
1839.) V tomto diele zahrnute je vel'ke mnozstvo vse- 
liakych dat a citatov zo vsetkych literatur, ktore dotial' 
zname boly. 

Roku 1841. podujal cestu cez Styrsko do Italie, zcia- 
stky k voli zotaveniu, i zciastky k voli d'alsim studiam. 
Svoje cestovne zkusenosti, dojmy a myslienky opisal v 
svojom prvom "Cestopise do Hornej Italie*'. Toto die- 
lo vyslo r. 1843. Druhu cestu taktiez do Italie vyko- 
nal cez Svajciarsko r. 1 844. Ale cestopis o tejto druhej 
ceste bol vydany az po Kollarovej smrti. 

Okrem toho nasbieral latky pre svoj objemny spis 
"Staroitalija slavianska", ktory vysiel tlacou tiez po smr- 
ti povodcovej r. 1853. 



20 

Medzitym nadisly burlive roky mad'arskej revolu- 
cie 1848 — 49, v ktorej mad'arski nacelnici zahranicne- 
mu svetu — Nemecku, Francii, Anglii, Amerike, pred- 
stavovali sa co bojovnici za svobodu, rovnopravnost? a 
bratstvo uhorskych narodov, v skutocnosti vsak bol to 
boj za neobmedzenu nadvladu mad'arskej feudalnej 
sl'achty nad nemad'arskymi narodmi tej krajiny. Tu ne- 
treba zabudat', ze v r. 1830 — 1848 vyse dvoch tretfn 
obyvatel'stva Uhorska bolo nemad'arskeho, ba este ani 
dnes, vzdor schvalne falosnej mad'arskej uradnej sta- 
tistike, Mad'ari netvoria vacsinu obyvatel'stva. Dalej, 
ze hlavny osnovatel' mad'arskej revolucie, vychyreny 
Ludvik Kossuth, r. 1847. na Presporskom sneme taky- 
mito rabulistickymi frazami hlasal opravnenost' potlaca- 
nia l'udu: "To je uz raz taky beh a poriadok sveta, ze 
ten, kto v spolocnosti nizsie klesa, byva utlaceny a oda- 
neny; ten vsak, kto sa v obcianskom zivote vyssie vy- 
svihne, byva setreny a pravami obdareny!" Ovsem o 
stvrf roka na to silnym prudom casu i Kossuth priniiteny 
bol aspon na oko hlasat' osvobodenie l'udu z poddanstva, 
ale sucasne dal do zalara a na sibenice odsudzovat' proti 
Uhorsku v nicom sa neprevinivsich nemad'arskych na- 
rodovcov, Srbov, Slovakov, Rumunov, len preto, ze ne- 
chceli v oci svojmu vlastnemu l'udu zurit' dl'a chut'ok 
kossutoyskeho terrorizmu. (Pocef Kossuthovskou vla- 
dou r. 1849. bez vysluchu odsudenych Slovakov, Srbov, 
a Rumunov prevysil 5 1 00 muzov, zien a deti. Z tych 
ovsem bola vacsina rakuskym a ruskym vojskom este 
zavcasu zo zalarov vysvobodena, ale mnohi uz boli po- 
vesani). V torn case bol i Kollar v Pesti na svojej fare 
mad'arskymi "honvedami", — po slovensky "obranca- 
mi vlasti", chyteny a zajaty. No prisle cisarske vojsko 
ho zo zajatia vysvobodilo. Viedenska vlada ho r. 1 849. 
povolala za dovernika a informatora v zalezitostiach sla- 
vianskych, ale uz asi po mesiaci bol vymenovany za mi- 
moriadneho professora slavianskej archaeologie na vie- 
denskej universite. Tu sice pilne pracoval. Napisal i 
svoje "Pamati" z dob mladosti. Ale trpel castou cho- 
robou ocnou, tak ze svoje prace mohol len diktovat. 
Zomrel po kratkej nemoci 1853. roku, 59 a pol rocny. 



21 

Pochovany bol vo Viedni v takzv. St. Marxovskom hro- 
bitove. Manzelka dala mu postavit' na hrob skromny 
pomnik. Telesne pozostatky Kollarove prevezene boly 
r. 1894 slavnostnym sposobom do Prahy a ulozene 
vo veFkolepom hrobitove "Na Olsanoch". 

VtZNAM KOLLAROVEJ PRACE. 

Vyznam Kollarovej prace a charakteru je epochalny 
nielen na jeho blizsich sukmenovcov, Slovakov a Cechov, 
ale na cele Slavianstvo — na Juhoslavianov, Srbov, Hr- 
vatov, Slovincov, na Poliakov, Rusov, na Luzickych 
Srbov v Nemecku, ba i v istom ohl'ade i na Nemcov, a 
ostatne so Slavianmi susediace narody. 

Ovsem je Kollar epochalny m hlavne co basnik, ale 
ten to pochop nesvobodno brat' v obycajnom skolskom 
smysle, ale v smysle Emersonovskom : basnik, myslitel', 
prorok, tvorca novych dob. 

Rozhodne najvacsie » — co do vyznamu — dielo 
Kollarovo je sbierka basnf "Slavy Dcera". 

"Slavy Dcera" — pise znamenity slavista-filo- 
zof, historik a archaeolog, professor varsavskej univer- 
sity, Jozef Perwolf — "ucinila ohromnu sensaciu. Sla- 
vianstvo vystupilo tu po prvy raz v celkovom obraze, 
licene v idealnych, horucou laskou nadchnutych barvach; 
tu boly jadrne vyslovene smele myslienky o celom Sla- 
vianstve a nahromadenym — na ten cas neobycajnym — 
historickym materialom z celeho Slavianstva, (ku ktore- 
mu potom basnik vydal obsfrny a dolezity vyklad) vni- 
kly znamosti o dejinach a pomeroch slavianskych i do 
sirsich kruhov". 

Kollar prisiel "v plnosti casu". Jako ked' na jar 
velika tepla vlna vzduchu rozprestre sa po sirych luci- 
nach, stranach a lesoch a jej budiacim ucinkom razom 
zacnu sa rozvijaf uz napuchnute puky rastlin, tak s ca- 
su na cas zjavuju sa i duchovne, myslienkove prudy a 
razom tvoria si svojich hlasatel'ov, zastavateFov, bojov- 
nikov. Kazdy odpor, kazda prekazka stava sa im len 
podnetom k rychlejsiemu, mohutnejsiemu rozvitiu, cel- 
kom tak, ako posledny Tahky sniezik, padly na puciace 



22 

kypre listky a kvety stromov, krov a pol'nych bylin, spo- 
sobi len, aby ony prirychle nevyhukly do slabych vyhon- 
kov, ale aby za kratky cas nalezite zpracovaly uz pri- 
jatu do buniek potravu a tvorily si z protoplasmy mem- 
brany, cievy, slovom pevnejsie ustroje. 

Taky ideovy prud zavial i Europou koncom 18. a 
pociatkom 1 9. stoletia. Veliky filozof Fichte hlasal svo- 
bodu osobnosti — "das freie Ich", za nim Schelling 
ucil identitu ducha a prirody, idealu s realom, opravne- 
nost? len takeho statu, ktory vie do suhlasu doviesf po- 
sitivnu svobodu individua so vseobecnou nutnost'ou. He- 
gel svojim ucenim o subjektivnom, objektivnom a ab- 
solutnom duchu budil tiez silne nemecke narodne — i 
statne povedomie. Ale mladi Slaviani mysleli o iiom 
tak; "Ked* sa germansky subjekt moze a ma vyvinovatf, 
slavianska narodna osobnost' ma take iste prava. Ved' 
sme s Germanmi co l'udia rovnocenni!" Pravda Hegel 
vo svojom nazore na dejiny tvrdil: ze v kazdej periode 
je isty urcity narod zvlastnym nosicom sveto-ducha- a 
v oci tomuto su vsetky ostatne narody bezpravne, dokial' 
dr. A. Stockel spravne poznamenava — "boly by cele de- 
dr. Albert Stock el spravne poznamenava — "su cele de- 
jiny len akoby kostnicou — kalvariou objektivneho du- 
cha". Slaviani s takymito vyvodmi Hegelovymi uz ne- 
suhlasili, ale zastavali rovnocennost? narodov, ale tak, 
zeby pri torn bol mozny i svobodny vyvin inych, pot'a- 
zne vsetkych narodov. Upevnil ich v takom smysl'a- 
ni i Herder svojimi humanitnymi ideami. Tedy rychle 
budilo sa narodne povedomie u vsetkych vetvi slavian- 
skych. 

V Cesku Dobrovssky (1753—1829) co hlboko- 
umny ucenec stal sa zakladatel'om slavistiky (nauky o 
Slavianstve v ohl'ade jazykopytnom, — lingvistickom i 
narodopisnom-ethnografickom, starozitnickom-archaeolo- 
gickom, dejepisnom, literarnom i l'udovom-folkloristic- 
kom atd*.) povzbudil ceskych narodovcov ku zdarnej pra 
ci prave v dobe hlbokeho ponizenia a v zufalych pome- 
roch toho naroda. Nasiel okrem viacerich inych i neu- 
navneho spolupracovnika v Jozefovi Jungmannovi (1 773 
— 1847). 



23 

Srbo-Hrvatov budil Vuk Karadzic (1787—1864) 
od roku 1814,, zaloziac im novu literaturu Fudovu. 

Vytecny filolog, Bartolomej Kopitar (1780-1844) 
uz r. 1 808 vynikal i jako vedomec i jako horlivy Slavian. 

U Rusov Michail Petrovic Pogodin (1800 — 1875) 
vyvinul znamenitu cinnost? za slaviansku vec. 

U Poliakov pokracovali o torn case v studiach sla- 
vianskej otazky po viacerfch starsich menovite Vaclav 
Maciejowski (1793 — 1883), Andrej Kucharski (1795- 
1862), a slavny basnik Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855). 

Boly tucty inych pracovnikov, ale priestor tohoto 
diela nadopusti nam ich dFa mien spomenutf. 

Ako z podanych letopoctov vidno, temer vsetci tu 
spomenuti boli vrstovnikmi Jana Kollara i jeho vel'keho 
spolurodaka Pavla Jozefa Safarika (1795 — 1863). 

Vestci ti znali sa navzajom co pilni oraci zaned- 
banej narodnej role. Citali jedni diela druhych, temer 
vsetci sa i osobne i listovne stykavali, i v pracach sa via- 
ceri z nich duchovne i hmotne podporovali. Ale ohrom- 
ne t'azku ulohu: zatriast' odrazu celym Slayianstvom, ve- 
deli vykonat' na ten cas len dvaja Slovaci, Safarik a Kol- 
lar. Ovsem, ako sme podotkli, oni nasli uz podu ob- 
stojne obrobenu. 

Avsak preco a jako prave Slovaci mohli sa staC ta- 
kymi apostolmi slavianskej idey_? Ved* narod z ktore- 
ho vznikli je jeden z najmensich konarov vel'naroda! A 
okrem toho, Slovakom od davna, ked* nie celkom zne- 
moznena, predsa nesmierne prekazkami zatarasena je 
cesta dostal? sa k zriedlam vyssej vzdelanosti prirodze- 
nym sposobom, to jest na zaklade reci materinskej! 

No narodik ten to ma svoje zvlastnosti a skvele pred- 
nosti. Ked' shrnieme vsetky dosavadne mienky, udaje 
a vyskumy o povodnych sidlach Slavianov, — pocnuc 
od Herdota, Straba, Ptolomaeusa, Plinia — od stre- 
dovekych kronikarov — az po novych a najnovsich ve- 
domcov, dojdeme k tomu vysledku, ze koliska Slavian- 
stva sti kraje okolo karpatskych, tatrianskych hor. Ovsem 
jedni moderni ucenci tvrdia, ze prvotne sidlo slavianske 
bolo na strednom a dolnom Dunaji a v Pannonii, (Prof. 
J. L. Pic), naproti tomu druhi a sice vacsina slavistov, 



24 

kladu kolisku Slavianstva nie na juh, ale na sever od Kar- 
patov. Nie menej vazne dovody, archaeologicke nale- 
zy atd'. hovoria za Moravu a Sliezsko, co starodavne 
byliska Slavianov. No vsetko toto poukazuje na to, ze 
rodne hniezdo Slavianstva, — co naroda, jazykove a ty- 
picky od inych narodov indoeuropejskych uz oddeleneho 

— differencovaneho, — je Slovensko a kraje s mm naj- 
blizsie susediace. Tu nachadza sa mnozstvo pamiatok 
z doby mladsej kamennej, neolithickej, i prvych dob ko- 
vovych, tu v nepretrzenom postupe su pamiatky stavieb 
mocarne-nakolne "lake-dwellings", za tym drevene hrad- 
ky, potom kamenne zamky, prve jednoduche a potom 
az do dob novohistorickych cim dial' tym nadhernejsie. 

Ano, Slovensko je stredom Slavianstva 1 Pozoru- 
hodne je, ze ked* vytecni znalci staroslavianciny (Old 
Church Slavic or Old Slavonic language) poznali prosto- 
narodnu slovencinu, tak jako iu hovori pospolity l'ud, 
ostali nadmier zadiveni nad jei uzkou podobnost'ou so 
starcslaviancinou. Professor Vladimir Ivanovic Laman- 
skij, univ. prof, v Petrohrade, ked' po prvy raz navstivil 
Slovensko, vyslovil sa: "Slovencina je vlastne starosla- 
viancina!" 

Ovsem, kultiirna, jazykova i typicka najblizsia su- 
vislost' Slovakov s Cechmi neda sa odtajif. Reformator 
Cech Jan Hus pisal vlastne slovensky, moravsky Slovak 
Komensky a uhorski Slovaci Safarik a Kollar cesky a ich 
spisy cita tak slovensky ako cesky jednoduchy clovek bez 
slovnika a rozumie im! 

Slovaci, tak obecny l'ud, ako intelligent^ ucia sa 
ostatnym slavianskym reciam s obdivuhodnou l'ahko- 
st'ou a tak rychle, i dokonale, ako ziaden iny, trebars i jim 
najblizsi susedny narod. Slovensky kupec, ked' pride 
do Ruska, o strnasf dm uz bezne plynne shovara sa s ru- 
skym dedincanom, sedliakom, slovensky student na srb- 
sko-hrvatskom gymnasiume bez zvlastnych fazkosti a 
bez predbezneho ucenia sa srbskej mluvnice, zdarne po- 
kracuje v studiach rovnako so Srbo-Hrvatmi. Slovenski 
ucitelia, knazia, professoria, lekari, atd*. nemohuc doma 

— nasledkom prenasledovania so strany mad'arskej vla- 
dy — dostaf postavenia, uz od desiatok rokov odcha- 



25 

dzaju do Ruska, Ceska, Pol'ska, Srbska a Hrvatska, kde 
v torn istom odbore zivotnej prace, ktoremu sa vyucili, 
nemyleno ucinkuju a obycajne i znamenite vynikaju. 

Taliansky anthropolog a psychiater, Cesare Lomb- 
roso, (v svojom diele "Genio e follia" — "Genialnosf a 
blaznovstvo" ) , dokazuje, ze narody vrchov davaju l'ud- 
stvu pomerne najviac vysokonadanych l'udi. Rozmani- 
tost' prirodnych zjavov, bohatstvo dojmov a podnetov, 
len pri napinavej a stalej praci mozna vyziva: vsetko to 
napomaha vyvin telesne i duchovne silnych plemien. 

Nuz a Slovaci su narod vrchov. A ponevac byvaju 
na tej istej zemi od mnohych davnych stoleti, vyvinuli sa 
v narod zriedkavych schopnosti, za osvetou, svobodou 
tuziaci a v celom svojom citeni taky umelecky, ze ang- 
licky spisovatel', Seaton Watson (Scotus Viator) pocas 
svojej druhej navstevy Slovenska, r. 1910. mohol plnym 
pravom vyslovif sa takto: 

"Nas slavny Ruskin za cely svoj zivot hl'adal vzor- 
ny narod, t. j. taky, ktory by bol vo vsetkych svojich zi- 
votnych prejavoch harmonicky, umelecky. Ruskin hl'a- 
dal taky narod, ale nenasiel ho — a neuspokojeny zo- 
mrel. Skoda! Keby Ruskin este zil, doviedol by som 
ho sem, a ukazal by som mu narod slovensky!" 

Ale Slovaci pri vsetkej svojej potlacenosti vynikli 
a vynikaju i vo vedeckych pracach. 

Nuz, ked' uvazime i len dosial' povedane, hebudeme 
sa divif, ze prave v slovenskom narode narodil a vyvi- 
nul sa najvacsi hlasateF slavianskej idey, Kollar. Mys- 
lienka plemennej totoznosti je akoby vrodena uz v po- 
spolitom slovenskom l'ude. 

Kollar svojou "Slavy Dcerou" dal jej vel'kolepy 
vyraz. "Slavy Dcera'* pod tymto nazvom vysla r. 1824. 
v Pesti (d'alsie starsie vydania r. 1832, 1845, novsie 
mnohe.) Jednotlive ciastky z nej vydane boly tlacou uz 
r. 1821, v Prahe, a najlepsie, ktore tehdajsia rakiiska 
statna cenzura nedovolila vytlacit', kolovaly v odpisoch 
medzi priatel'mi. Konecne uplne vydanie pozostava z 
predspevu a pat? oddielov-spevov, spolu 645 zneliek. 
Predspev pisany je v klassickych antickych distichach, 
dvojversoch, (hexametre s pentametrom — sestimere s 



26 

patimerom). Znelky-sonetty, sii Petrarcovske, 1 4-riadko- 
ve, riadky desat'- a devafslabicne. Prizvucne trochaeicke. 
Obidve formy ovladal Kollar majstrovsky. Volil formu 
antickeho disticha i moderneho sonetta i preto, aby uka- 
zal, aka ohybna, l'ubozvucna i bohata je jeho materin- 
fika rec, ked'ze mozno v nej takymi nesnadnymi umelec- 
kymi formami a melo dicky mi rymami vyjadrovaf i naj- 
vyssie idey a najhlbsie city. Petrarca bol tedy Kollarovi 
vzorom co tyka sa zovnajsej formy. Ale vo vnutornom 
slozeni, v koncepcii a celej komposicii diela bol mu vzo- 
rom "jeden z najvacsich basnikov vsetkych vekov" — 
Dante Alighieri. Pri basnickej tvorbe i idealizovani Mi- 
ny Kollarovi rozhodne tkvela pred ocima postava Dan- 
teovej svatice. Tak i posledne dva spevy Slavy Dcery, 
"Lethe" a "Acheron", znaciace slavianske peklo a nebo, 
su zretedlne ponasky na Danteho. Avsak ze "Bozska 
komedia" vel'kolepou svojou komposiciou, mnozstvom 
nedostiznych basnickych kras, obrazov a idei i klassickou, 
mohutnou i neznou mluvou (dikciou) ucinkovala na Kol- 
lara, ako i okolnosf, ze Kollar znal Byronovho "Child 
Harolda", to ma pri uvazovani "Slavy Dcery" len druho- 
stupnovy vyznam. Lebo tu treba znovu pripomenutf, 
ze Kollar uz od detstva mal cujne, jemne ucho pre krasy 
svojej materinskej reci. Co tyka sa melodickeho akcentu 
(prizvuku), plynnosti, plno- a l'ubozvucnosti, bohatstva 
slov, obraznych vyrazov a zvratov, mozno slovencinu 
prirovnat' len ku starej, klassickej attickej grectine. 
Basnik Adolf Hejduk, ked* poznal slovencinu, vyslovil 
«a o nej takto odusevnene: 

"Ach, ta sloven cina — svata fee to, vim! 

Jazykem ta veru neni svetovym. 

Jestli so vsak andel v nebi 

Bohu zpevem vdecf: 

nesmi Mu on jinak zpfvat, 

nez slovenskou feci!" 
Nuz a tuto rec mal Kollar uz hotovu. Ba keby ne- 
bol svoje basne skladal v cudzich formach, ale bol by 
bral versove miery priamo z poezie svojho Fudu — ako 
to neskor mnohi slovenski basnici cinili a cinia, bol by 
ostal povodnejsim i ucinnejsim. Pravda i tak, ako je, vni- 



27 

kol do Sirokych vrstiev naroda. Ponevac prve vydanie 
Slavy Dcery tlacene bolo len v nevel'kom naklade a z to- 
ho, ked' zjavilo sa v knihkupectvach, nepriatelia Slova- 
kov zakupili a znicili tol'ko vytiskov, kol'ko mohli, tedy 
mnohi Slovaci odpisovali si to dielo bud' to cele, bud' to 
vo vyt'at'hu. Robili to pospoliti l'udia remeselnici, dedin- 
ski ucitelia a najma studenti strednych skol. Na vset- 
kych stranach ucili sa muzovia, zeny, mladenci, panny, 
celym odsekom nazpamat', prednasali jednotlive znelky. 
Myslienky, vykrystalizovane, vznesenou basnickou recou 
vyslovene, rychle stavaly sa majetkom celeho naroda. 
V zapati Kollarovych krokov vyrastali temer sucasne je- 
ho nadseni nasledovnici. V prvom rade genialna trojica 
slovenskych basnikov, vedomcov i politikov. Michal M. 
Hodza (1811 — 1870), L'udevit Stiir (1815—1856) a 
Jozef M. Hurban (1817 — 1888) a za nimi cela plejada 
vytecnikov, ktori tak zivym, ako tlacenym slovom za- 
pal'ovali narodne, slavianske povedomie a sirili osvetu 
v massach Fudu. Kuzmany, Zello, Jan Chalupka, Samo 
Chalupka, Jonas Zaborsky, Samo Tomasik, Krai, Kalin- 
cak, Stefan Marko Daxner, Botto, Francisci, Matuska 
atd\ Taky ucinok mala Slavy Dcera i na najblizsich 
bratov Slovakov, na Cechov. 

Tazisko celeho vplyvu Kollarovho je VSESLAVIAN- 
SKA VZAJOMNOST. Tento pochop v rokoch tridsiat- 
ky 19. stoletia dostal nazov panslavismus, a toto slovo 
rozsirilo sa po celej Europe, ba i za jej hranice. 

VSESLAVIANSKA VZAJOMNOST. 

PANSLAVIZMUS. 

Nielen l'udia a knihy, ale i jednotlive slova maju 
svoje osudy. Nezriedka zvrhne sa pravy smysel' slova — 
v hlavach a ustach povrchnych alebo zlomysel'nych Fudi 
na uplny opak pravdy. Ale t'azko by bolo najst' slova, 
ktoreho pochop bol nepriatel'mi tak prekruteny, tak zfal- 
sovany, ako pochop panslavizmu. Zfalsovali ho Nemci 
a Mad'ari. Rozhlasovali v casopisoch, knihach, v sne- 
moc,h shromazdeniach, s kazateFni, v skolach, ze pan- 



28 

slavizmus je snaha: vykynozit Germanstvo, Mad'arstvo 
a potom cely ostatny svet a uviest* vsade slavianske poli- 
ticise panstvo, nadvladu, tyranniu. DFa tych vyvodov 
panslavizmus znamena zkazu a zahubu vsetkej vzdelano- 
sti, kultury, svobody europejskej. Je to zlocinny, krimi- 
nalny smer, ktory treba do korena vynicif, vypalif. Preto 
vyhlasili kriziacku vojnu proti vsetkym vyznavacom vse- 
slavianskej vzajomnosti. Vynasali zakony na snemoch 
i cirkevnych kongresoch, fahali pred svetske i cirkevne 
sudy kazdeho, na koho padlo i len denunciantske podo- 
zrenie, le "suciti s panslavmi". 

Ked' akykol'vek podly cloyek, statny uradmk, knaz, 
lekar, statny sekretar (B. Griinwald) spachal nejaky kri- 
kl'avy zlocin, l'ahko sa osvobodil od nasledkov, ked* vy- 
setrujucemu sudcovi, alebo aspon svojmu predstavene- 
mu posepnul, ze on bojuje proti panslavismu. Tak to 
bolo v Uhorsku, Rakusku i v Prusku (Expropriacne za- 
kony proti pozfianskym Poliakom.) Bolo to podobne 
utrpeniu prvych krest'anov. No take vysvetFovanie pan- 
slavismu bolo len satanskou zamienkou pre nemecke, ma- 
d'arske a turecke tyranstvo nad Slavianmi! 

Ale najhodnovernejsfm, najopravnenejsim, authen- 
tickym vysvetrovatel'om kazdeho ucenia, kazdej myslien- 
ky a idy je jej povodca. Tedy co znamena vseslavianska 
vzajomnost' v smysle Kollarovom? 

Ked' dovedna shrnieme, co Kollar v Slavy Deere 
hlasa, dojdeme k nasledujucim zakladnym vetam: 

Slavianstvo uz v predhistorickych dobach nie vy- 
bojne, ale pokojne osadilo sa v krajinach od Rujany po 
Ural, od Baltu po Adriu, i Carihrad a huzevnatou, ne- 
umornou pracou obrobilo, vzdelalo tieto rozsiahle kraje, 
trpelo za tisicletia krivdy, napady, utisky od draveho 
sveta germanskeho, hunskeho, tatarskeho, tureckeho. No, 
bozska myslienka dejin hovori, ze Tudstvo negaciou svo- 
jej podstaty nemoze sa blizit' svojmu idealu; ze akym- 
kol'vek vrazdenim narodov, fyzickym alebo duchovnym, 
nemozno dosiahnut' ciel'ov clovecenstva : tedy Slavian- 
stvo ma sa sjednotit' a zastat' si na obranu svojich vse- 
l'udskych prav; ma zachranit' jadro svojej vrodenej po- 
vahy a utvorif z neho pravu vseclovecensku vzdelanost'. 






29 

osvetu a svobodu. Vyvin, vzrast a rozkvet toho jadra 
je pestovanie narodnosti. Odrodilstvo je vobec najhorsi 
stupen degeneracie — zvrhlosti. 

"Hfich je ovsem velky, vrazda vztekla, 
kradez, zrada, zharstvo, otravy, 
hodny, aby mecem popravy 
krev a duse z tela jejich tekla; 

I lez, pycha, zavist, svod a smekla 
chlipnost, cihajici na mravy, 
a jak slujou ony ohavy 
pfisle na zem z horouciho pekla: 

Vsak znam draka s tvafi cernoduchou, 
proti nemuz tyto ulomky 
hnchu jeste snehu belsi budou. 

Ten sam loupi, repce, uci zlemu, 

bije sebe, predky, potomky, 

a zni: Nevdek ku narodu svemu." 

(Slavy Dcera, spev II. 121.) 

Kollarovska vseslavianska vzajomnostf nevola o 
pomstu za utrpene krivdy, ale ziada len zamedzit' d'aFsie 
bezpravie. Kollar vie, ze tol'ko krvi a cernidla nevylial 
nikde ziaden nepriatel', koFko vylial k zahube Slavian- 
stva Nemec", ale lined* doklada, ze 

"Sam svobody kto hoden, svobodu zna vaziti KAZDO, 
ten kto do pout jima otroky, sam je otrok." 

Tedy, ked' Slavianstvo ma sa spojit* v jeden celok, 
aby mohlo sa povzniest k najvyssim sferam ducha, tym 
naskrze neziada, aby nesnazil sa ta i German, Anglosas, 
Francuz alebo Talian. Naopak, zasada tato vyzaduje, 
aby kazdy narod svobodne — ale bez nicenia, dusenia 
inych, vyvieoval sa do miery praveho cloveka. 

"Narod tak povazuj jedine jako nadobu Tudstva. 
A vzdy volas-li SlavianI nech se ti ozve: clovek!" 



30 

Kollar nechcel, zeby Slaviani mali by? vychovavany 
za narod dravy, vybojny. On skutocne dokonale pocho- 
pil vrodenu vlastnosf slavianskej duse, totiz, ze sice ne- 
rada trpi, ale ani nerada cini nasilie. Podobne, ako veliky 
myslitel' a skumatel' dusi, Lev Nikolajevic Tolstoj, vo 
svojom diele "Konec vieka" (1905) dokazuje, ze rusky 
narod nema niakej naklonnosti k panovaniu nad inymi. 

Aky to ohromny, priamo diametralny rozdiel medzi 
Kollarovskou vseslavianskou vzajomnosfou a medzi 
Nemcami hlasanym pangermanismom! 

Roku 1876. dr. Pfeiderer, v Kommentari ku prekla- 
du Danteho "Divina Comedie'^ vyklada, ze uz Dante 
ocakaval spasu svojho naroda od nemeckeho "svetoveho 
cisarstva'* — "deutsches Weltkaisertum!" Pred 7. — 8. 
rokmi vydana nemecka kniha "Die blonde Bestie" (Pla- 
va selma) t. j. Nemectvo je jedinym predstavitel'om l'ud- 
skej vzdelanosti, lebo vraj i Kristus bol German! Panger- 
manismus vobec nevie si myslet' dobry vyvin narodov, 
pokrok clovecenstva, dosiahnutie idealnych ciel'ov, bez 
zbijania inych narodov o zem, rec, sabaurcovanie. Je 
to odveka germanska dravost', ktora javi sa od Karola 
Velikeho az do nasich ciast a ktorej len slavianska idea 
postavi konecnu hradzu. 

Kollar so svojim priateFom Safarikom v rozhovo- 
roch utuzovali sa vo viere, ze Slaviani pod nacelnictvom 
naimohutnejsie konara svojej rodiny, Ruska, sjednotia 
sa i politicky. Ovsem, v onej dobe vyslovovat' take 
mienky v Rakusku a verejne bolo by ich zivoty stalo. 

No pritom vsetkom Kollar ohnivym, bleskovym slo- 
bestialnu dravost', a s druhej strany ako pravy prorok od- 
halil zavoj slavnej buducnosti svojho, za tisicletia suzene- 
halil zavoj slavnej buducnosti nasho, za tisicletia suzene- 
ho, ale prebudzajuceho sa vel'naroda: 

"Co z nas Slavu bude o sto roku? 
Coze bude z cele Europy? 
Slavsky zivot navzdor potopy 
rozsiri svych vsude meze kroku. 



31 

A ta, ktorou mely za otroku 
jen fee — kfive Nemcu pochopy, 
ozyvati se ma pod stropy 
palacu i v ustech samych soku. 

Vedy slavskym potekou tez zlabem, 

kroj, zvyk i zpev lidu naseho 

bude modnym nad Seinou i Labem. 

O kyz i ja radej v tu jsem dobu 
narodil se panstvi slavskeho, 
aneb potom vstanu jeste z hrobu! 

Kollar povedal tieto pamatne prorocke slova okolo 
roku 1824. Este neminulo od tych cias doslovne rata- 
nych sto rokov, ale kto by pochyboval, ze Kollarovske 
proroctvo sa uz vel'kolepe plm? 

Vidno to nielen v torn, ze na svetochyrnych univer- 
sitach — nemeckych, francuzskych, anglickych — pe- 
stuje sa slavistika; nielen, ze diela slavianskych basnikov, 
menovite ruskych a pol'skych, citaju sa v celom kultur- 
nom svete, ze tvorby slavianskeho umenia, hudby, mai'by 
i socharstva nadobyvaju si uznania a uctu od jednej casti 
zemegule po druhu; ze Slaviani pilne prispievaju cenny- 
mi pracami, urodnymi myslienkami i na poli vedy, vyna- 
lezov a v priemysle; ale co je najhlavnejsia vec i — vo 
vseslavianskej vzajomnosti vyslovena idea sbratrenia 
vsetkych narodov vnika uz i do hlav jasnejsie mysliacich 
zapadnickych sociologov, politikov a statnikov; ze tito 
nahliadaju aky blahodarny vplyv bude mat na vzpruze- 
nie, ozdravenie a d'al'si rozkvet, — v mnohom ohl'ade 
jednostranne sa vyvinujucich, — ba ako najma ruski 
Slavianofili hovoria a menovite francuzski narodovci uz- 
navaju — rychle starnucich zapadnych narodov. 

Tak tedy narody zapadu maju a iste i budii uprim- 
ne vitat?, sFachetne napomahat uskutocnenie Kollarovych 
idei. 



LIBRARY OF COWrocc 

mi. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

Hi- 



